Strauch v. Computer Science Corp.

After litigating the case for several years, a federal jury in 2017 unanimously ruled that Computer Sciences Corporation (CSC) wrongly and willfully denied overtime pay to approximately 1,000 current and former technology support workers around the country.

The federal jury in Connecticut rejected CSC’s claim that its System Administrators in the Associate Professional and Professional job titles are exempt under federal, Connecticut and California law, ruling instead that the workers should have been classified as nonexempt and paid overtime.

The jury found CSC’s violations to be willful, triggering additional damages. The misclassifications were made despite the fact that, in 2005, CSC paid $24 million to settle similar claims from a previous group of technical support workers.

These System Administrators’ hard work for CSC and its clients is a significant driver of CSC’s profits and success, and they deserve to be fairly compensated, said co-lead counsel Todd Jackson of Feinberg, Jackson, Worthman & Wasow LLP.

Co-lead counsel Jahan C. Sagafi of Outten & Golden LLP added, we’re thankful that the jury took such care in listening to and weighing a massive amount of evidence, appropriately finding that the employees deserve overtime pay.

Co-lead plaintiffs’ counsel Daniel Hutchinson of Lieff, Cabraser, Heimann & Bernstein LLP explained, Because the System Administrators do not make policy, design the systems or do computer programming, they fall within the protections of federal and state overtime laws.

The System Administrators all worked over forty hours per week at least once without receiving overtime compensation as required by federal and state law. In addition, they were often assigned to be on call to handle troubleshooting tickets and other nonexempt tasks to assist clients 24/7.

The Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) dictates federal overtime protections. Unless exempt, employees covered by the Act must receive at least time-and-a-half for hours worked over 40 in a workweek. Over the course of the two-week trial, CSC claimed four distinct types of exemptions; administrative, computer professional, learned professional and a combination exemption; and the jury unanimously rejected all of them.

In July of 2021, the United States District Court for the District of Connecticut granted final approval to a $9.5 million settlement.