Natural Grocers Gets Some Overtime Claims Sent to Arbitration

A class action accusing Natural Grocers of misclassifying assistant store managers as exempt from overtime will be trimmed, because about one-third of the class members signed arbitration agreements, a federal court in Colorado said.

Natural Grocers owns and operates more than 150 grocery stores in the central and western U.S. Michael Levine sued under the Fair Labor Standards Act, alleging the company misclassified assistant store managers as exempt from time-and-a-half pay requirements for work over 12 hours per day or 40 hours per week. A total of 158 former or current workers joined the action as opt-in plaintiffs.

The U.S. ...