October 22, 2004

This time it's drugmaker SmithKline Beecham, which has agreed to pay $5.2 million to nearly 1,300 workers who were classified as temps or leased employees when (plaintiffs argued) they really should have classed as regular employees. Their three lawyers will bag as much as $1.8 million. The judge found that the workers did in fact believe they were temps when they came on board and had no expectation of being entitled to receive pension benefits or other perks due regular employees. Reason to throw out the case, since the workers seem to have gotten very much the bargain they were expecting? Not at all: reason to suspend the statute of limitations, in the judge's view, since claimants who didn't imagine they had any right to extra money could hardly have been expected to pursue their right to sue.