EAST ST. LOUIS - A Casey's General Store manager filed a class action in federal court, alleging she and other managers should receive overtime pay.
In the lawsuit, plaintiff Summer Kessler claims she and other store managers "regularly worked in excess of 40 hours in each workweek, but were not compensated at one and one-half times their respective regular rates of pay for all hours worked over forty in each such workweek."
The company maintains "a common policy not to pay overtime wages," Kessler alleges.
Although managers are classified by the company as exempt from overtime pay, they "primarily performed the same or substantially similar non-exempt job duties, including providing customer service, selling products in the store, setting up and restocking products on store shelves, working on the cash register, preparing drinks and food, cleaning the store, cleaning the bathroom, stocking the coffee and cappuccino machine, cleaning up the coffee area, stocking the cooler, and other physical work," the suit states.
The plaintiff seeks unpaid overtime pay and "any penalties and other damages as permitted by law," plus attorney fees.
Kessler also asks the court to issue "a declaratory judgment that the practices complained of in this Collective and Class Action Complaint are unlawful."
The plaintiff is represented by Douglas Werman of Werman Salas PC in Chicago
U.S. District Court, Southern District of Illinois case number 3:22-cv-02971