$113.7 Million Verdict for 13,000 Missouri Prison Guards Denied Pay for Pre- and Post-Shift Work

For years, corrections officers at Missouri state prisons started and ended every shift the same way: passing through security screening, picking up keys and radios from the equipment room, walking to their duty stations, and then reversing the process when their shift ended. None of that time showed up on a paycheck. The Missouri Department of Corrections counted the clock from the moment an officer arrived at the duty station, not from when they entered the facility.

Thomas Hootselle, Daniel Dicus, and Oliver Huff were among the named plaintiffs in a class action filed in 2012 on behalf of all Corrections Officer I and II employees who had worked for MDOC since August 2007. The complaint alleged that these mandatory pre- and post-shift tasks consumed between 15 and 25 minutes each day, amounting to as many as seven uncompensated hours in a typical workweek. The claims rested on breach of the officers' labor agreement and on the Fair Labor Standards Act.

The class was represented by the St. Louis firm Cantor & Burger, which later split into Cantor Injury Law and Burger Law. Brian Winebright, now a partner at Cantor Injury Law, worked the case while at Cantor & Burger and was instrumental in securing class certification for the corrections officers; Gary Burger served as lead trial counsel. After six years of litigation, the case reached trial in Cole County Circuit Court. In August 2018, Circuit Judge Patricia Joyce ruled that MDOC had breached its obligation to compensate officers, and a jury returned a verdict of $113.7 million -- one of the largest employment judgments in Missouri history. The award included back pay covering more than a decade of unpaid time for the 13,000-member class.

MDOC appealed. In June 2021, the Missouri Supreme Court issued a unanimous decision that affirmed liability for two specific categories of work, retrieving equipment and remaining on-call during transitions, but vacated the full damages award and remanded the case for a new trial to determine which remaining activities were compensable and to recalculate damages accordingly.

Rather than retry the damages phase, the parties reached a settlement. Missouri agreed to a $49.5 million cash fund to cover back pay owed to class members for the period from August 2007 through July 2022. The state separately agreed to add 15 compensated minutes to each shift for current and future corrections officers and sergeants through June 2030. When those prospective payments are included, the state's total cost to resolve the case exceeds $100 million. Settlement payments to class members began in November 2022.