Court orders Hardeman County government to pay millions in legal fees as part of class-action lawsuit

BOLIVAR, Tenn. — A lawsuit filed in 2019 by multiple individuals with the Hardeman County Sheriff’s Office has come to an end.

In the lawsuit, plaintiffs complained of a lack of compensation including: not paying the plaintiffs for all hours of overtime worked, not correctly calculating their hourly rate of pay, and changed timesheets.

The lawsuit also implied that the 2015-2016 budget included salary cuts for some of the sheriff’s office employees. However, at the time, Hardeman County Sheriff John Doolen was unaware of changes made to the budget.

Tennessee law prohibits counties from adopting any budget that reduces salaries in the sheriff’s department without the sheriff’s approval.

Click here for more information on the lawsuit.

Although Hardeman County reached a settlement with some of the plaintiffs in the class-action suit, the county lost the lawsuit from the remaining class action participants. The plaintiffs then filed in court for the county to pay all their legal fees.

The county fought to prevent paying the fees, but were ordered by a court Tuesday to pay more than $4.5 million to the plaintiffs in the case.

One commissioner has reached back out to WBBJ 7 Eyewitness News and says the county will be doing just fine and they wish this lawsuit could have been settled sooner.

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