$5.7M Settlement Follows Cognizant Overtime Lawsuit

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Cognizant Technology Solutions Corp., IT services giant, recently agreed to settle an overtime lawsuit for $5.7 million. The lawsuit included allegations that the firm failed to pay a group of US employees for overtime hours worked. 

What is Overtime Under California Law?

According to California state law, employers are required to pay all nonexempt employees daily overtime one and one-half times the employee’s regular rate of pay for all hours they work over 8 hours (up to and including 12 hours in any workday), and for the first 8 hours worked on the seventh consecutive day of work in a workweek.

The Plaintiff in the California Overtime Case:

While the Cognizant overtime lawsuit is a class action covering several different, but similar workers, the named worker in the lawsuit is Debi Mishar. Mishar was a testing analyst for a Sacramento Blue Shield of California location for Cognizant. The other workers included in the class action were also workers in the company’s quality assurance testing business.

The Plaintiff’s Allegations: California Overtime Class Action Lawsuit

According to the documents included in the California overtime class action, Mishar was paid an annual salary until August 2012, when Cognizant switched his payment to an hourly wage. Mishar alleges that the defendant underpaid overtime by failing to include certain amounts of pay when they calculated the employee’s “regular rate of pay” used to calculate overtime pay.

The Cognizant California Overtime Class Action Lawsuit: 

The overtime class action lawsuit was filed in US Federal Court on August 25, 2017. The court granted preliminary approval of the $5.7 million settlement earlier this month. A hearing is set to seek final approval on November 12, 2020.

If you need to talk to someone about violations in the workplace or need to file an overtime lawsuit, get in touch with Blumenthal Nordrehaug Bhowmik DeBlouw LLP. Experienced employment law attorneys are ready to assist you in any one of various law firm offices located in San Diego, San Francisco, Sacramento, Los Angeles, Riverside, and Chicago.