Employee satisfaction may seem like one of those things that can’t be measured in dollars and cents. But attorneys for a group of area jailers have managed to put a price tag on this inestimable commodity – and it’s apparently worth $625,000.
This six-figure sum is what the lawyers for these two detention officers have proposed to settle a two-year-old court battle against Alamance County’s sheriff Terry Johnson over a pay policy that they believe has systematically shortchanged their wages.
This legal wrangle began in the spring of 2023 when detention officer Andrew S. Beers took Johnson to court over the method that the sheriff’s office had used at the time to calculate wages for jailers who worked swing shifts. Beers argued that this method chronically underestimated the number of hours that he and his colleagues worked and consequently cheated them out of hundreds of dollars in wages.
Beers eventually obtained an all-clear from the federal courts to pursue his complaint as a class action lawsuit. He was eventually joined in his claim by fellow detention officer Katherine White. Then, after more than a year of back-and-forth motions, the pair had their case calendared for trial this coming August.
Shortly after the federal courts scheduled the trial, attorneys for both parties asked the presiding judge to put the proceedings on hold to allow them to negotiate a potential settlement. The two sets of lawyers came back in April to announce that they had struck an agreement – the details of which were to appear in a forthcoming court filing.
On Friday, attorney Corey M. Stanton, who has represented Beers and White in this case, submitted an “unopposed motion” that called for a total payment of $625,000 to settle the class action. Stanton elaborated that this sum falls halfway between the $431,480.74 that the defendant had estimated as his “maximum class-wide potential damages” and the $969,815.35 that the plaintiffs believe the class could collect through a successful claim for breach of contract.
Under the terms of this proposed agreement, the plaintiffs named in the lawsuit would receive $120,000 from the proposed settlement sum, while another $208,333.33 would go to the plaintiff’s attorneys, and $3,000 would be set aside to cover litigation and settlement costs. The remaining $293.666.67 would be divvied up among other members of the affected class who opt into the proposed settlement. According to the plaintiff’s motion, these individuals consist of “all non-exempt detention officers and corporals” who worked for the sheriff during a four-year period that ended on March 25 of this year.
As part of the settlement, the sheriff would deny any legal liability for breach of contract or alleged violations of federal labor law. Meanwhile, the plaintiffs and any other class members would waive their right to pursue further claims in exchange for a share of the settlement.
According to Alamance County’s attorney Rik Stevens, who has assisted the defense led by attorneys with the Cranfill Sumner Law Firm, the plaintiff’s attorneys must now contact potential class members to see if they want to be added into the settlement. In the meantime, various procedural hurdles must be surmounted before the federal judge assigned to this case grants his final approval to the proposed settlement.
“All this is going to take time,” he added, “and I don’t know if anyone will see any money until, maybe, next year.”
