The American Association for Justice has a New Lawyers Division for its younger lawyers. From time to time, AAJ honors special and unique achievement nationally by recognizing the extraordinary work of what AAJ considers its rising stars.
Brian Malloy of the Brandi Law Firm was recently recognized by AAJ as a New Lawyers Division “Star” for his role in a unique series of cases against The Hershey Company. Through Brian’s efforts, in the first case approximately 120 Retail Sales Representatives (RSRs) were acknowledged by the Federal District Court to have been misclassified as “outside sales” employees exempt from overtime and were entitled to overtime damages. Then, after Hershey did not change its policy, a second case against the chocolate giant was filed where ultimately over 150 RSRs joined the case seeking overtime pay as a result Hershey’s practices.
During the pendency of the second action, Hershey finally changed its policy and now hundreds of RSR employees are now eligible to obtain overtime compensation.
The two cases for which Brian was recognized were both in Federal Court in San Francisco but affected Hershey RSRs nationwide. They are Zulewski, et al. v. The Hershey Company, Case 4:11-cv-05117-KAW (N.D.Cal.) and Campanelli, et al. v. The Hershey Company, Case 3:08-cv-01862-BZ (N.D. Cal.). The Zulewski overtime damages order became a bellwether decision regarding the proper calculation of FLSA overtime damages in a misclassification case. Zulewski v. Hershey Co., 2013 WL 633402 (N.D.Cal. Feb. 20, 2013). Several District Courts have adopted the reasoning and holding, siding with the workers and holding that “time-and-a-half” is the proper method to calculate damages.
Brian is currently representing workers on a third case against Hershey for a group termination based on age discrimination.