A current employee of the State of Minnesota (“the State”) filed a lawsuit on October 13, 2015 in the United States District Court for the District of Minnesota for violations of Federal and State law, seeking unpaid overtime wages. The named plaintiff, a “security counselor” working within the State’s Health and Human Services Department at its Regional Treatment Center in St. Peter, Minnesota, brought the case on behalf of hourly employees who have worked for the State of Minnesota within the past three years.
The complaint alleges that the State of Minnesota failed to properly calculate overtime compensation for its hourly employees by including only their lowest hourly rate in the overtime calculation, rather than also including hours worked and paid at a higher “premium” rate as required by State and Federal wage and laws. Specifically, the named plaintiff alleges that the State failed to include higher “premium” hourly rates of pay occasionally earned by employees, when determining the employees’ “regular rate” of pay, necessary to calculate overtime pay. The plaintiff seeks unpaid overtime wages and liquidated damages.
Plaintiff's attorney Paul Lukas explained, “It is a fairly straightforward and common calculation error, but in this case, it affects tens of thousands of State employees and the State has been aware of it for over a year without fixing it.”
Plaintiffs are represented by Paul J. Lukas from Nichols Kaster, PLLP, which has offices in Minneapolis, Minnesota and San Francisco, California and Randall Knutson from Knutson + Casey, PLLP, located in Mankato, Minnesota . The case is entitled, Kamara v. The State of Minnesota. Case No.: 0:15-cv-03846 (District of Minnesota).
Additional information about how to make a claim in the case may be found at www.nka.com or by calling Nichols Kaster, PLLP toll free at (877) 344-4628.