How One Call Claims tried to avoid paying overtime pay to the workers working overtime.

TL;DR: After Hurricane Harvey, One Call Claims (OCC) placed licensed adjusters to work claims for the Texas Windstorm Insurance Association (TWIA). Those poor overworked workers say the companies controlled schedules, required approval for settlements, imposed monitoring, and paid fixed day rates without overtime.

This is pretty fucking shitty.

The Eleventh Circuit ruled a jury could find they were employees under the Fair Labor Standards Act, reversing summary judgment. Keep reading for the details, the human costs, and how deregulation and profit incentives created the conditions for this harm.

Table of Contents

• Inside the Allegations: Corporate Misconduct
• Regulatory Capture & Loopholes
• Profit-Maximization at All Costs
• The Economic Fallout
• Exploitation of Workers
• Community Impact
• The PR Machine
• Corporate Accountability Fails the Public
• Pathways for Reform & Consumer Advocacy
• This Is the System Working as Intended
• Conclusion
• Frivolous or Serious Lawsuit?

Inside the Allegations: Corporate Misconduct

Most damning facts:

• Workers report OCC and TWIA set regimented hours, reviewed timesheets, and could dock pay for absences or tardies.
• Workers state TWIA required consultation and approval before settlement offers.
• Workers describe monitoring software that tracked when they worked and even typing metrics; the companies deny this capability.
• TWIA threatened release if anyone worked Sundays without prior permission; payment for Sunday work required advance approval.
• OCC paid non-negotiable day rates ($500–$1,200) with no overtime; workers claim a right to overtime under the FLSA

Court posture and ruling:
The district court held the workers were independent contractors. The Eleventh Circuit reversed on October 16, 2025, holding that a jury could find the workers were employees under the FLSA based on control, lack of profit opportunity, minimal worker-side investment, duration, and the work’s integral nature to OCC and TWIA.

Timeline of What Went Wrong

Regulatory Capture & Loopholes

TWIA operates under special statutory obligations. The companies structured the work through an outsourcing model and contractor labels that place licensing costs, travel, lodging, and day-to-day expenses on individual workers while retaining enterprise-level control over schedules, tools, and approvals. This structure exploits legal gray zones around “independent contractor” labels and public-entity special requirements, creating distance from wage protections while extracting labor on fixed day rates.

Systemic context: Deregulation and understaffed enforcement make worker misclassification a repeatable tactic. When public or quasi-public insurers rely on vendors that then control workers like staff, wage law enforcement lags behind business models designed to skirt worker protections.

Profit-Maximization at All Costs

Design choices signal incentives:

• Fixed, non-negotiable day rates sever the link between hours worked and pay.
• Approval before settlements centralizes power and preserves institutional risk control while workers bear the productivity pressure.
• Sunday-work permission and threat of release manage overtime exposure while maintaining output expectations.

Under neoliberal incentives, profit and liability management guide staffing models. Contractor labels push business costs onto labor and keep wage exposures low.

The Economic Fallout

Direct worker impacts documented in the record:

• No overtime pay for workweeks over 40 hours due to contractor classification; workers claim entitlement as employees.
• Out-of-pocket expenses for licensing, travel, food, lodging, and communications raise effective costs of working these long assignments.
• Exclusive focus on TWIA during multi-year stretches eliminates outside income options, reinforcing dependence.

The court recognized the economic dependence indicators as consistent with employee status.

Exploitation of Workers

Control mechanisms cited by workers: fixed schedules, timesheet approvals, potential docking of pay, mandatory tools and accounts, and threatened termination for unauthorized Sunday work. These controls, paired with fixed pay and personal expense burdens, extract labor intensity while offloading employment costs!

Community Impact

Post-disaster claim handling shapes household recovery. When claims operations squeeze adjusters through cost-shifting and surveillance, service quality and speed risk deterioration. Disaster survivors face longer timelines and added stress when the workforce is pushed to burnout conditions under rigid controls.

The PR Machine

The record shows dueling narratives: workers describe intense control and monitoring; the companies deny those details and emphasize independence. This rhetorical divide mirrors a common corporate playbook that reframes labor control as “parameters” or “preferences.” The appellate opinion rejects labeling games and centers the economic reality test.

Corporate Accountability Fails the Public

The first ruling granted summary judgment against the workers. Only on appeal did the case regain traction. This path shows how procedure often shields corporate structures from speedy accountability. Prolonged litigation raises costs for workers who already absorbed business expenses and lost overtime pay.

Pathways for Reform & Consumer Advocacy

Policy steps aligned with the facts and patterns:

• Tighten FLSA enforcement against misclassification where companies set schedules, supply core systems, and require approvals.
• Mandate transparent pay structures in catastrophe claims operations, including overtime tracking where economic dependence exists.
• Strengthen whistleblower protections for adjusters reporting control, monitoring, and uncompensated overtime.
• Public procurement standards that condition contracts on wage compliance and audit rights for disaster-response vendors.
  (General reforms; no claim beyond the record.)

This Is the System Working as Intended

The appellate court emphasizes economic reality over labels. The business model extracted full-time labor for years under fixed rates, strict controls, and company systems. This alignment of control and cost-shifting matches predictable outcomes under neoliberal capitalism: labor bears the risk; firms harvest the margin.

Conclusion

The case presents a clear picture: the workers say they lived by company schedules, approvals, tools, and threats, all while receiving fixed day pay with no overtime. The Eleventh Circuit recognized that a jury could view these workers as employees. That finding opens a path toward compensating people who kept claims moving after a historic storm. The human and societal costs mount when disaster recovery leans on contractor labels to suppress wages while maintaining command-and-control operations.

Frivolous or Serious Lawsuit?

Serious. The appellate court found five of six economic-reality factors could support employee status and reversed summary judgment. The claims rest on documented control, dependence, and the integral nature of the work