Court Orders Counsel to Send Notice of Right to Participate in Wage and Hour Lawsuit to Time Share Salespeople

On April 23, 2008 the law firms of Butler Williams & Skilling and Cupp & Cupp sent Notice to current and former salespeople of Great Eastern Resort Corporation of their right to participate in a lawsuit seeking unpaid overtime compensation and unpaid minimum wages.  The action was brought as a representative action under the Fair Labor Standards Act by two former Time Share Salespeople.  The Circuit Court for Rockingham County authorized Butler Williams & Skilling and Cupp & Cupp to send the Notice to 629 former and current salespeople and “Takeover managers” of Great Eastern who worked any time after April 24, 2005.  In order to be included in the lawsuit, the employees must file a written Consent to Become a Party, which is attached to the Notice, any time before July 22, 2008.

Butler Williams & Skilling, PC and Cupp & Cupp, PC represent a group of timeshare salespeople at Massanutten Resort in Harrisonburg, Virginia.  The salespeople are employed by Great Eastern Resort Corporation, which is managed by the Berkley Group of Fort Lauderdale, Virginia, and are paid on a commission basis. The lawsuit asserts that the salespeople are entitled to unpaid overtime and minimum wages under the Fair Labor Standards Act, which is the federal law governing overtime and minimum wages. 

Many timeshare sales employees work more than forty hours each week and are not paid overtime.  In January 2007 the U.S. Department of Labor issued a Letter Opinion that supports the payment of overtime to timeshare salespeople in many situations.  We are interested in talking to current or former employees of Great Eastern and other resorts to discuss industry compensation practices and the claims asserted in the pending Massanutten case.