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Defendant Misclassification Case Study

Whiteway v. FedEx Kinko’s

Case Details

This case involved the alleged misclassification of FedEx Kinko’s Center Managers as exempt. Lamorinda was asked to conduct a job study of Center Managers to learn what tasks and activities Center Managers actually performed and the amount of time they spent performing exempt work. We developed a reliable and valid job analysis questionnaire and administered it to 150 Center Managers in four states. The class in this California case was certified which prevented us from talking to class members when we were retained by the defense.

Our Study

• Reviewed company documents to gain a thorough understanding of company operations.
• Developed a customized job analysis questionnaire for the Center Manager position.
• Selected states where store operations were very similar to those in California.
• Pretested the questionnaire with a group of incumbents in another state before it was finalized.
• Administered the questionnaires to Center Managers simultaneously across locations in hotel conference rooms. Our staff administered the questionnaires, answered questions, collected completed questionnaires and shipped them to our office for analysis.

Results

Results of the study revealed that the vast majority of Center Managers spent more than half of their time performing exempt work. Dr. Banks wrote a declaration summarizing the study findings, and the declaration was filed with a summary judgment motion by defense counsel. The judge granted summary judgment. The plaintiffs appealed, and the summary judgment was reversed. The case is now pending.