Flowers Foods Loses Bid to Shake Off Delivery Drivers’ OT Suit

Flowers Foods Inc., which makes Wonder Bread and Tastykake, must continue litigating with a nationwide collective of delivery drivers who say they were misclassified as outside salespeople exempt from the Fair Labor Standards Act’s overtime rules, a federal judge in New Mexico ruled.

A reasonable jury could find that the drivers don’t actually sell the products or that sales isn’t their primary job duty, Judge Judith C. Herrera said Wednesday in denying Flowers’ motion for summary judgment on the issue.

The drivers’ earnings are largely controlled by Flowers, the court said. They work under nearly identical distributor agreements to ...