Omitting comma cost this US dairy company Dh18.3m

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Omitting comma cost this US dairy company Dh18.3m

The five drivers who led the lawsuit will receive $50,000 each from the settlement fund.

By Web Report

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Published: Mon 19 Feb 2018, 10:54 AM

Last updated: Mon 19 Feb 2018, 6:48 PM

Five drivers of Oakhurst Dairy in Maine, US, dragged a company to court as the requisites for employee overtime had an Oxford comma missing.
The company's drivers filed a lawsuit in 2014 and sought $10 million in a dispute about overtime payment which erupted due to the missing comma, causing information to mislead.
The US federal appeals court accepted the drivers' lawsuit, concerning an exemption from Maine's overtime law and US Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, Judge David Barron, said in March 2017 that 'For want of a comma, we have this case', according to a report by NBC News.
The court documents filed on Thursday show that the company and the drivers settled for $5 million (Dh18.3 million approx).

The disputable sentence was referred to Maine's overtime law and whom it doesn't apply to: "The canning, processing, preserving, freezing, drying, marketing, storing, packing for shipment or distribution of:

"(1) Agricultural produce;

"(2) Meat and fish products; and

"(3) Perishable foods."

In 2017, Judge Barron reasoned that the law's punctuation made it unclear if 'packing for shipping or distribution' is one activity or if 'packing for shipping' is separate from 'distribution'.

The five drivers who led the lawsuit will receive $50,000 each from the settlement fund, NBC news quoted Portland Press Herald reports. While the other 127 drivers who are eligible to file a claim will be paid a minimum of $100 or the amount of overtime they were owed based on their work from May 2008 to August 2012.


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