I’m not getting paid for the overtime hours I work, and my employer has a “no-overtime” policy. If I clock out and continue to work, should I still be paid for those hours?

A federal appeals court just held that the employer is liable for overtime worked by hourly employees if it knows or should know that the employee is working the hours, even if it has an official policy of not allowing overtime pay. The Eleventh Circuit Court of appeals held that an employee who worked after clocking out because his supervisor told him that the company did not allow overtime was entitled to overtime pay. Read more here: Bailey v. TitleMax

The employer argued that because the employee violated company policies (e.g., inaccurate reporting of hours worked), and because he never reported that he was working overtime, it was not responsible for the overtime pay.  The court explained that it would not be fair to allow employers to claim that employees themselves were at fault for working off the clock because employees are already subject to pressures from their employers.  It would be too easy for an employer to shift blame for working unauthorized overtime onto employees.