On Friday, December 27, 2013, a field service specialist filed a Fair Labor Standards Act Complaint in federal court against QIAGEN, Inc.
The named Plaintiff was employed by the company for several years prior to filing the collective action lawsuit. He filed his FLSA claims on behalf of himself and other “similarly situated" employees, which includes “Field Service Specialists,” “Instrument Service Specialists,” and other titles performing similar duties. The Complaint alleges that QIAGEN willfully denied its field and instrument service overtime pay by improperly classifying them as exempt from the FLSA’s overtime protections. The Complaint alleges that in this position, the named Plaintiff and those similarly situated actually performed non-exempt work; installing, repairing, troubleshooting, servicing, and maintaining testing devices and equipment manufactured by QIAGEN. The named Plaintiff was paid a salary and received no overtime compensation for the many overtime hours he worked.
QIAGEN is California company with its U.S. corporate headquarters located in Germantown, Maryland. It is a provider of sample and assay technologies for molecular diagnostics, applied testing, and academic and pharmaceutical research. QIAGEN employs field and instrument service specialists throughout the U.S.
Rachhana T. Srey, who represents the plaintiff stated, “The Department of Labor has had a long-standing position that employees that perform work which consists of installation, diagnosis and repair of equipment, like QIAGEN’s field service specialists, are not exempt from federal overtime protections. Our lawsuit seeks to recover the overtime pay that we allege QIAGEN has unfairly denied to its employees who do this type of work.”
Plaintiffs are represented by Rachhana T. Srey from Nichols Kaster, PLLP in Minneapolis, Minnesota and Jesse S. Brar of Preston & Brar, in Salt Lake City, Utah. The case was filed in federal court in the Western District of New York and is titled Childs, et al v. QIAGEN, Inc., Court File No. 13-cv-01229.
Additional information may be found here www.nka.com or by calling Nichols Kaster, PLLP toll free at (877) 344-4628.
