Gwinnett Medical Examiner's office wins lawsuit against ex-employees over overtime pay
The Brief
A jury has ruled in favor of the Gwinnett County Medical Examiner's office in a lawsuit filed by seven former employees over what they claimed were unpaid overtime hours.
The employees told FOX 5 that they sometimes worked 100 hours a week but were only paid for 40 hours.
The jury found that the employees were classified as exempt from the Fair Labor Standards Act and not owed back pay.
GWINNETT COUNTY, Ga. - A jury has decided not to award seven former employees who sued the Gwinnett County Medical Examiner's office over what they claimed were unpaid overtime hours.
The former investigators filed the lawsuit in 2021 against Dr. Carol Terry and Forensic Pathology Services, the private company hired by Gwinnett County to handle all death investigations.
After a two-week trial, the jury ruled in favor of Terry and Forensic Pathology Services.
MORE:Former investigators sue Gwinnett Medical Examiner, accusing her of ignoring federal law
The backstory
Gwinnett is the only metro Atlanta county that outsources death investigations. Forensic Pathology Services is paid around $1.5 million each year and has worked with the county since 2006.
Former investigators told the FOX 5 I-Team that they were assigned to work nights and weekends to handle death scenes.
The employees claimed that they sometimes worked 100 hours a week but were only paid for 40 hours.
"You're literally falling asleep in the morgue because you haven't had any rest," said Ashley Bryant, one of the investigators involved in the lawsuit.
Terry argued that the employees were salaried and exempt from overtime rules. After an employee filed a Department of Labor complaint, she limited her staff to a 40-hour workweek.
"I want to do what's right and I want to comply with federal law," Terry told the FOX 5 I-Team. "And I intend to."
What they're saying
After deliberating for over an hour, the jury ruled that the former employees were not owed back pay due to their job classification.
In a press release after the jury's verdict, a spokesperson for Forensic Pathology Services claimed that the employees used their workdays to do personal errands and had part-time jobs and side businesses.
"Dr. Terry had faced claims of allegedly improperly classifying employees and allegedly failing to pay overtime," the spokesperson wrote. "Contrary to those allegations, the jury concluded that Dr. Terry's forensic death investigators, employed and empowered by the Georgia Death Investigations Act, were properly classified as administratively exempt from the Fair Labor Standards Act."
What's next
It is not clear if the ex-employees plan to appeal the ruling.
The Source
Information for this report came from previous FOX 5 I-Team investigations into Forensic Pathology Services and a release after the verdict in favor of the company.
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