On Tuesday, June 21, 2016, a field service engineer filed a Fair Labor Standards Act Complaint in Minnesota federal court against Alcon Laboratories, Inc. He filed an overtime claim on behalf of himself and others similarly situated, which includes refractive engineers, wavelight engineers, wavelight refraction technicians, surgical technicians, territory managers and those working in other positions performing similar duties (collectively "field service engineers"), who worked for the company during the past three years. The Complaint alleges that Alcon Laboratories improperly classified its field service engineers as exempt from the FLSA's overtime protections. The Complaint alleges that in this position, the field service engineers performed non-exempt work that included installing, repairing, troubleshooting, servicing, and maintaining testing devices and equipment manufactured by Alcon Laboratories. The named Plaintiff was paid a salary and up through approximately April 2016 received no overtime compensation for the many overtime hours he worked. The Complaint seeks unpaid overtime wages and double damages.
Alcon Laboratories, Inc. is an Illinois company with its corporate headquarters in Fort Worth, Texas. It is a global company that operates in three areas relating to eye care: surgical; pharmaceutical; and vision care. It operates in 75 countries, 180 markets, and employs more than 24,000 people.
Michele R. Fisher, who represents the plaintiffs stated, "The Department of Labor has maintained a long-standing position that employees who perform work consisting of installation, diagnosis and repair of equipment, like the Alcon Laboratories' field service engineers, are not exempt from federal overtime protections. Our lawsuit seeks to recover the overtime pay they deserve under the law."
Plaintiffs are represented by Michele R. Fisher and Robert L. Schug from Nichols Kaster, PLLP, which has offices in Minneapolis, Minnesota and San Francisco, California, and Nicholas R. Conlon and Jason T. Brown, of JTB Law Group, LLC in Jersey City, New Jersey. The case was filed in federal court in the District of Minnesota, Court File No. 0:16-cv-02040.
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