A legal battle over unpaid wages at an Anheuser-Busch brewery in Virginia has taken a significant turn after a federal appeals court ruled that hundreds of workers cannot pursue their claims as a single class action, citing major differences in their job duties and workplace experiences.
The dispute centers on allegations that employees at the company’s Williamsburg brewery were not compensated for time spent putting on and removing required safety gear before and after shifts. Workers also argued they should have been paid for additional screening and safety measures imposed during the COVID-19 pandemic.
However, the three-judge panel of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals concluded that the workforce was far too varied to be treated as one unified group in court.
In its decision, the court pointed to a wide range of distinctions among employees. Workers were spread across multiple departments, performed different tasks, and used different combinations of protective equipment. Some reportedly arrived at work already wearing required gear, while others changed on-site. Pandemic-related procedures also affected only certain employees, as many joined the brewery after those measures had been discontinued.
The judges said those differences created too many individualized questions to justify class-wide treatment under Virginia wage laws.
The lawsuit, filed in 2021, alleges that brewery employees were expected to be ready and present at their workstations for the entirety of their scheduled shifts, effectively excluding time spent preparing for work by donning safety equipment such as steel-toed boots, earplugs, protective vests and hard caps. Workers argued that this practice violated both federal labor standards and state wage laws.
While the company had previously agreed to allow a collective action under the federal Fair Labor Standards Act, that process differs from a traditional class action because each participating worker maintains an individual claim.
A federal district judge in Virginia had certified the state-law claims as a class action last year, rejecting arguments that the workers’ circumstances were too different. The appeals court disagreed, highlighting another complication: Virginia amended its wage laws in 2022, creating different legal standards for employees hired before and after the changes took effect.
Despite overturning the class certification, the court did not shut the door entirely on collective litigation. Instead, it returned the case to the lower court to consider whether smaller, more narrowly defined groups of employees—such as workers from the same department—could pursue claims together.
The ruling leaves the wage dispute alive but significantly narrows the path forward, forcing the lower court to determine whether more targeted subclasses can satisfy the legal requirements that the broader class could not.
