Bean Sprout Factory Workers Owed Overtime Pay: Mass. High Court

Employees at a Massachusetts bean sprout factory misclassified as agricultural workers were improperly denied overtime pay, the state’s highest court decided.

The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruled March 15 that a lower court erred when it agreed with factory owner Chang & Sons Enterprises Inc. that the workers performed agricultural work. The company claimed it could deny overtime pay to the workers at its Whately, Mass., bean sprout factory because “agriculture and farming” is one of about 20 types of work exempted from the state’s overtime law.

Evidence presented in the case showed that the facility’s bean sprout growing ...