Butterball Beats Turkey Loader’s Appeal in Piece-Rate Wage Case

Butterball LLC told a worker it would pay him per truckload of turkeys handled, and it properly calculated his overtime compensation based on that per-load rate, a federal appeals court said Tuesday.

There’s no genuine dispute of material fact that the worker was a piece-rate employee, the US Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit said, affirming a ruling for Butterball. The worker didn’t provide any evidence that the poultry producer shifted his hours from one week to another in violation of Fair Labor Standards Act overtime rules, the opinion added.

Osvaldo Figueroa, who caught and loaded turkeys onto ...