Rite Aid Settles Claims

Rite Aid Corp. agreed to pay $25 million to settle overtime claims by about 3,000 store managers, assistant managers and managers-in-training in its California stores.

Each manager will receive about $35 for each week worked since October 1994, under the terms of the agreement, which received preliminary approval from San Diego Superior Court Judge J. Richard Haden, said Matt Righetti, a San Francisco-based lawyer who is representing the workers.

A manager who had worked for Rite Aid since 1995 would get about $11,800. The company also agreed to begin paying its assistant managers overtime as earned, a change it already had made for its trainees.

“They immediately reclassified all the assistant managers to nonexempt,” Righetti said. “Going forward, there is a big benefit to a big chunk of the class.” The company has not said whether it will reclassify managers, he said.

“We and the plaintiffs believe that it’s a fair settlement,” said Sarah Datz, a spokeswoman for the Harrisburg, Pa.-based company.

The settlement will be paid out in installments over three years from the date of final court approval, she said.

The company, which operates more than 3,600 stores nationwide, including 598 in California, admitted no wrongdoing.