Arthur J. Gallagher & Co. has entered into an $8 million settlement agreement to close a class action lawsuit, which alleged that the insurance broker misclassified the work of its managerial employees and forced overtime work, among other accusations.
In 2018, Pamela Rubin-Knudsen and Marnine Casillas brought the class action lawsuit against Gallagher on behalf of the company’s client service managers. The two alleged that the company misclassified them as overtime exempt as, despite their managerial title, they were asked to perform mainly clerical tasks on overtime, but without the extra pay. They also alleged that the broker failed to provide adequate off-duty meal periods and that Gallagher failed to pay wages due after termination.
But in November – two years after the lawsuit was first filed – the plaintiffs entered into a Stipulation of Class and Representative Action Settlement and Release, and sought to gain preliminary approval of the settlement agreement. On January, the plaintiffs filed a motion for Attorneys’ Fees, Costs and Incentive Awards, and in February they filed a motion for Final Approval of Class Action Settlement. Both were unopposed by Gallagher.
The US Central District Court of California had granted preliminary approval of the settlement agreement last year, and after a hearing on the final approval motion on March 15, the district court finally ordered on March 19 that all claims against Gallagher and its subsidiary, Arthur J. Gallagher Service Company, be “dismissed with prejudice,” court documents said.
