How did a labor dispute that made it to court this year hinge on something as small as a comma? It began when Kevin O’Connor, a driver for Oakhurst Dairy, realized that he was missing out on overtime pay, despite his regularly occurring 10, 12, 14-hour workdays. Knowing that the state of Maine had some exceptions to the state law, he contacted a lawyer, who found the comma that changed the game.
His lawyer’s argument? The lack of a comma in the rule made it unclear whether drivers like O’Connor were eligible for overtime. The activities that were ineligible for overtime were:
The canning, processing, preserving, freezing, drying, marketing, storing, packing for shipment or distribution of: (1) Agricultural produce; (2) Meat and fish products; and (3) Perishable foods.
Because there was no Oxford comma between “shipment” and “or,” the lawyer argued, it was unclear which activities were ineligible. As Quartz noted, “Is packing (for shipment or distribution) a single activity that is exempt from overtime pay? Or are packing and distributing two different activities, and both exempt?”
O’Connor, along with about 75 other drivers, filed a class-action lawsuit to sue Oakhurst Dairy for $10 million in unpaid overtime. Watch the video to find out the judge’s ruling and see if that Oxford comma came in to save the day for O’Connor and his fellow drivers.