Federal Jury Clears Lindsey Management Co. of Alleged FLSA Violations
by October 1, 2014 2:46 pm 140 views
San Francisco-based employment and labor law firm Littler Mendelson announced Wednesday that Lindsey Management Co. of Fayetteville has been cleared by a federal jury of alleged violations of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA).
The decision was reached Sept. 26 in Fayetteville by a jury in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Arkansas, who determined that Lindsey properly classified salaried employees as exempt.
In Chad Lochridge, et al. v. Lindsey Management Co., Inc., a group of former salaried employees of apartment communities managed by Lindsey Management filed misclassification claims under the FLSA.
In the verdict, the jury determined that each of the former salaried employees met at least one of the exemptions of the FLSA and, therefore, were not entitled to overtime pay.
“This decision allows the apartment industry to continue to classify salaried apartment managers as exempt employees,” said Kim Miers, an attorney in Littler’s Dallas office and head of Lindsey Management’s five-person defense team. “As employers across all industries continue to contend with exempt misclassification claims that have the potential to cause significant issues for their operations, this is an important decision that will likely influence other cases that challenge similar positions.”
Lindsey Management, the property management and multifamily housing operation founded in 1985 by real estate magnate Jim Lindsey, is the largest property management firm of multifamily housing in Arkansas. It also has a presence in Alabama, Kansas, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, Oklahoma and Tennessee, with a total of 42 golf course/apartment communities and more than 39,000 units.
“We are thrilled with the outcome of this decision,” said Anne Mourney, general counsel at Lindsey Management. “We have long maintained that the plaintiffs in this case were paid all wages owed and that they were properly classified as exempt employees under the FLSA. It is very gratifying that the jury ultimately agreed with our position.”
Eva Madison, who opened Littler’s Northwest Arkansas office in Fayetteville in 2006, was also on Lindsey Management’s defense team.