Are Adjusters Professional?
Thursday, November 15th, 2001 Litigation Risk ManagementRecently, a California trial court entered a judgment in favor of the claim adjusters working for the Farmers Insurance Group in Los Angeles, agreeing that they were deprived of the right to overtime pay. The jury awarded the adjusters $91,000,000. The trial verdict followed an appellate decision called Bell v. Farmers Insurance Exchange, 87 Cal.App.4th 805, 105 Cal.Rptr.2d 59 (2001). The court of appeal stated: In short, the record as a whole confirms the accuracy of FIE’s own description of the claim representatives’ responsibilities as being restricted to ‘the routine and unimportant.’ On matters of relatively greater importance, they are engaged only in conveying information to their supervisors-again primarily a ‘routine and unimportant’ role. This characterization of their role in the company places the plaintiffs in the sphere of rank and file production workers.
