WILLIAMSPORT - A federal judge has approved the $20.9 million settlement offered by Rite Aid Corp., thus ending 14 lawsuits alleging that some salaried assistant and co-store managers were wrongly classified to avoid paying them overtime.
The average payment to the nearly 9,400 members of the class in all states where Rite Aid has stores, except California, will be $1,800, according to an order signed Monday by U.S. Middle District Judge John E. Jones III.
The settlement encompasses back pay, damages and attorney fees for cases filed in federal and state courts. Class members in Pennsylvania are salaried assistant and co-managers employed since April 8, 2006.
Rite Aid denied it violated the Fair Labor Standards Act or any state or federal wage law. The drug store chain headquartered in Camp Hill in June offered to settle the cases, asserting it had “strong and meritorious defenses” but wanted to avoid the expense and burden of further litigation.
After Shirley Craig of Brownsville, Ga., filed the first complaint in 2008, Rite Aid claimed the issue involved assistant managers with the former Eckerd chain, which it acquired in 2007.
Besides the settlement, Jones approved attorney fees of $6.693 million and expenses totaling $273,598.