As we noted last summer, legacy Schering-Plough has been losing a federal version of these battles, appeal after appeal, over the last few years. . . now, it seems, it will be New Merck's turn before the mast.
In truth, though, most of the big pharma employers have one or more of these sorts of suits pending in one or more districts around the nation -- here is a bit of a press release, from the California firm that has filed the most recent one against New Merck (and a 42 page PDF file of their full state putative class action complaint):
. . . .In the recently filed Orange County overtime lawsuit, Frudakis v. Merck, the main issue portends to be whether pharmaceutical sales representatives meet the requirements of the outside salesperson exemption from overtime pay. Outside salespersons are exempt from overtime pay only if they spend more than half of their working time away from the employer's principal place of business or away from their home office "making sales." The complaint alleges that the sales reps were not "making sales" because at most they could obtain non-binding promises from physicians to prescribe certain drugs as appropriate. . . .
We will keep you posted.
No comments:
Post a Comment