Dr. Carol Terry’s firm is paid a flat charge of roughly $1.6 million to deal with all demise circumstances in Gwinnett.
GWINNETT COUNTY, Ga. – A jury has determined to not award seven former staff who sued the Gwinnett County Medical Examiner’s workplace over what they claimed had been unpaid additional time hours.
The previous investigators filed the lawsuit in 2021 towards Dr. Carol Terry and Forensic Pathology Companies, the personal firm employed by Gwinnett County to deal with all demise investigations.
After a two-week trial, the jury dominated in favor of Terry and Forensic Pathology Companies.
MORE: Former investigators sue Gwinnett Medical Examiner, accusing her of ignoring federal legislation
The backstory:
Gwinnett is the one metro Atlanta county that outsources demise investigations. Forensic Pathology Companies is paid round $1.5 million every year and has labored with the county since 2006.
Former investigators instructed the FOX 5 I-Crew that they had been assigned to work nights and weekends to deal with demise scenes.
The workers claimed that they generally labored 100 hours per week however had been solely paid for 40 hours.
“You’re actually falling asleep within the morgue since you haven’t had any relaxation,” mentioned Ashley Bryant, one of many investigators concerned within the lawsuit.
Terry argued that the workers had been salaried and exempt from additional time guidelines. After an worker filed a Division of Labor grievance, she restricted her employees to a 40-hour workweek.
“I need to do what’s proper and I need to adjust to federal legislation,” Terry instructed the FOX 5 I-Crew. “And I intend to.”
What they’re saying:
After deliberating for over an hour, the jury dominated that the previous staff weren’t owed again pay as a consequence of their job classification.
In a press launch after the jury’s verdict, a spokesperson for Forensic Pathology Companies claimed that the workers used their workdays to do private errands and had part-time jobs and facet companies.
“Dr. Terry had confronted claims of allegedly improperly classifying staff and allegedly failing to pay additional time,” the spokesperson wrote. “Opposite to these allegations, the jury concluded that Dr. Terry’s forensic demise investigators, employed and empowered by the Georgia Dying Investigations Act, had been correctly categorized as administratively exempt from the Truthful Labor Requirements Act.”
What’s subsequent:
It isn’t clear if the ex-employees plan to attraction the ruling.
The Supply: Data for this report got here from earlier FOX 5 I-Crew investigations into Forensic Pathology Companies and a launch after the decision in favor of the corporate.
