The U.S. Department of Labor's Wage and Hour Division differentiates between types of employees when regulating who has to be paid overtime for time and attendance above 40 hours in a week. Workers at candy company Russell Stover recently filed a lawsuit against their employer for mislabeling them as sales representatives and not giving them overtime pay, as reported by ABC News.

According to the plaintiffs, their job duties mainly consisted of manual labor, such as receiving and stocking shipments, and therefore they do not work in sales. Misclassifications like these can put employees at a disadvantage by denying them rightful overtime pay. While sometimes these mistakes are intentional, employers should be sure they know the law so they don't accidentally put workers in the wrong category.

The candy company's employees argue that the misclassification was intentional and purposeful in order for the business to save money, the source reported.

A similar case came up a year ago regarding drug sales representatives. According to The Wall Street Journal, the Supreme Court ruled that drug salespeople are exempt from overtime pay requirements, just like outside sales representatives in other industries. Once again, the workers did not believe that they fit into the regular sales rep category.

The drug rep suit set a precedent for similar cases, so the Russell Stover employees might also be denied overtime pay.

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