Oilfield companies continue to be sued for alleged overtime violations across the country. A federal court in Colorado recently approved a settlement of a class action overtime case. Xtreme Drilling is an oilfield services company with operations across the United States. In Blanco v. Xtreme Drilling and Coil Services, Inc., an oilfield worker sued Xtreme alleging that it failed to pay him and other workers in accordance with Colorado’s overtime statute. The plaintiff alleged that the company violated the overtime laws by failing to include bonuses, oil-based mud payments, training pay or per diems in the workers’ regular rates of pay when calculating overtime payments. The parties subsequently agreed to a settlement. Under the proposed settlement agreement, defendant agrees to pay a total of $850,000.00. The settlement funds are to be distributed as follows: (1) service award of 24,000.00 to plaintiff; (2) payments to class counsel of up to 38 percent of the settlement amount, which equals $323,000; (3) payment of class members’ payroll taxes; and (4) pro rata payments to settlement class members of all remaining funds based on a formula set out in the settlement agreement to be calculated by the settlement administrator.
The Court approved this settlement. Xtreme has a history of being sued for alleged overtime violations – a check of PACER, the federal online database, shows that the company has been sued more than a dozen times for allegedly violating the overtime pay laws since 2013. The author of this article, Josh Borsellino, was not involved in the case profiled in this article.
About the author: Josh Borsellino represents workers suing for unpaid overtime. If you worked in the oilfield industry within the past three years and were paid a salary, day rate, flat hourly rate, or otherwise were not paid overtime for every hour you worked above forty in a week, you should call an experienced overtime attorney to learn if you have a claim for unpaid overtime. For a free consultation regarding your overtime pay matter, call Josh at 817.908.9861 today or email him by clicking this link.
