American Eagle might have underpaid its retail store managers in California.

This is a employment related class action lawsuit against AE Retail West LLC, which is the owner of American Eagle retail stores in California and a indirect subsidiary of American Eagle Outfitters.

This class action lawsuit alleges that American Eagle misclassified store managers as exempt from overtime in violation of California law.

Under California law, employees who spend 50% or more of their work time performing "non-management" duties are entitled to overtime pay, even if they are classified by the company as managers. The lawsuit seeks to recover compensation for the unpaid overtime work, missed meal periods, rest periods, as well as waiting time penalties for former employees.

Although American Eagle label certain of their employees as "managers" in order to exempt them from state labor laws, in reality, the managers spend the majority of their time performing the same tasks as hourly employees, such as cashiering, providing customer service, selling, providing floor coverage, steaming, folding, and hanging clothing, and other non- managerial duties. In fact, "managers" employed by American Eagle in California spent over fifty percent (50%) of each shift performing tasks identical to those of non-salaried employees.

The class action complaint alleges that the "managers" at American Eagle:

(1) spent in excess of 50% of her time working on non-managerial functions, such as cashiering, providing customer service, selling, providing floor coverage, steaming, folding, and hanging clothing, and other non-managerial duties such as assisting customers, ringing up sales and organizing the merchandise;

(2) was not always able to take rest and meal breaks due to low staffing at the various stores where she worked;

(3) had very little discretion in the operation of her locations;

(4) had no input into decisions about what merchandise would be sold;

(5) was not involved in any advertising;

(6) did not set sales goals for the stores.; and

(7) could not hire or fire other employees, or set their salaries.