Two federal lawsuits have been filed on behalf of former Epic workers alleging the Verona, Wis.-based company owes them overtime pay, according to the Wisconsin State Journal.
According to the lawsuit, the workers were technical writers who allege Epic classified them as being exempt from overtime wages, so they were paid a fixed salary regardless of how many hours they worked.
According to the report, labor laws permit exemptions from overtime pay for certain areas of work, including managerial or computer work, but the lawsuit argues technical writers do not fit any of the exemption categories.
The two lawsuits are nearly identical, though one was filed on behalf of a group of technical writers who were working at Epic as of April 2, when the company emailed workers an agreement to arbitrate wage claims, according to the report. The other lawsuit was filed on behalf of employees no longer working at Epic as of April 2, so they would not have received that email.
The lawsuits were filed Tuesday in the U.S. District Court in Madison, Wis., with motions to certify them as class-action lawsuits, according to the report.
Epic faced a similar lawsuit in 2014 when former quality assurance workers alleged the company owed them overtime wages. Epic settled in October for $5.4 million.
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