Beasley, Allen, Crow, Methvin, Portis & Miles, P.C.

Hurricane Katrina, a powerful storm surge, and a system of inadequate levies teamed up in 2005 to create an unprecedented level of disaster in the United States. In the wake that followed, New Orleans (along with many other coastal communities in Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama) resembled a sea of destruction. New Orleans relied heavily on day laborers to clean up, repair, and rebuild. Sadly, however, recent surveys found that 80% of the Hispanic workers had been cheated out of compensation.

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A lawsuit filed by employees against Buffalo Rock Co. of Birmingham, Alabama has been certified as a class action lawsuit, according to a report in the Birmingham News. Workers filed the lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for Birmingham in 2007, alleging the company’s failure to compensate some of its sales and delivery employees for overtime work.

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A federal appeals court on Tuesday upheld a $35.6 million judgment against Family Dollar Stores Inc. originally handed down by a Tuscaloosa, Ala., federal jury in 2006. The jury said the company violated the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) by wrongly classifying employees as store managers in order to deny them overtime pay.

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Three federal judges this week upheld a $35.6 million ruling against Family Dollar Stores Inc., saying the chain denied employees overtime pay by classifying them as store managers.

A three-judge panel in Tuscaloosa agreed with a 2006 jury that found the Matthews, N.C.-based company in violation of the Fair Labor Standards Act and awarded back pay to 1,424 employees, who routinely worked 60 to 70 hours a week. Their duties often included mopping floors, unloading trucks, stocking shelves and running cash registers.

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GOODLETTSVILLE, Tenn. — Dollar General Corporation (NYSE:DG) announced today that the judge in the collective action lawsuit pending against the Company in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Alabama issued a ruling during the trial decertifying the class which had consisted of approximately 2,500 individuals. The case, styled Edith Brown, on behalf of herself and others similarly situated v. Dolgencorp, Inc. and Dollar General Corporation, CV02-C-0673-W, asserts claims under the Fair Labor Standards Act. The judge is allowing the 12 named plaintiffs in the lawsuit to proceed with their case.

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