Your teacher told you grammer’s important

The lack of a comma in labour legislation is costing Oakhurst Dairy in Maine $5 million to settle a class action lawsuit settlement with its truck drivers.

Five drivers launched a $10-million lawsuit in in 2014 claiming they were owed overtime pay from the processor for routinely driving 50 to 60 hours.

The lawsuit was settled on Feb. 8 and the five primary plaintiffs will be awarded $50,000 each. The other drivers will be paid based on overtime hours driven from May 2008 until August 2012.

The case hinged on the lack of a comma in Maine’s state law regarding overtime pay.

According to the law, exemptions for overtime are applied for “canning, processing, preserving, freezing, drying, marketing, storing packing for shipment or distribution of” foods.

Drivers argued the exemption did not apply because they aren’t packing produce and because there’s no comma to separate the activity from “distribution.”