Buckeye Reporter

Ohio Republican Senate hopeful and businessman Bernie Moreno is firing back at "overblown" attacks he's facing due to his involvement in wage litigation in the state of Massachusetts.

Like many employers in a state where plaintiffs and their lawyers are incentivized to sue over alleged wage theft - treble damages (tripling the award) await at the end of a successful case - Moreno has faced overtime pay lawsuits by employees of his Massachusetts auto dealerships.

He also owns dealerships in Ohio, Kentucky and Florida.

Moreno has been highly critical of the legal climate and judicial system in Massachusetts.

He's been asked about the wage litigation from early on in his campaign, addressing his friends in Boston and Massachusetts, "leave there before it’s too late - come to Ohio where we have a good judicial system,” Moreno said in debate.

A defense attorney representing Massachusetts employers in wage litigation told a Bloomberg Law reporter earlier this year that "It's warfare out there." The attorney, Barry Miller of Seyfarth Shaw, said that increasing enforcement through private litigation is creating "a much more punitive and pernicious environment for an employer" because of the state's strict wage theft law, according to the report. 

Some of the wage cases against Moreno have settled and another higher profile case brought by two workers (Omar Adem and Stephen Martinez) ended in a jury verdict in 2022 where the judge ordered Moreno to pay more than $400,000.

A ruling by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court shortly after the Adem and Martinez case was filed held that employees working more than 40 hours in a week are entitled to overtime pay, even if commissions earned are greater than the time-and-a-half rate.

Moreno called it "insane." 

"It was an extreme lunatic Judicial Supreme Court that overturned federal law," Moreno said. "They made the ruling retroactive so that salespeoples' overtime could not be deducted from their commission.

"It was an insane ruling that affected every single car dealership, every single furniture store, every single (sales) commission business in Massachusetts."

He said that among the lawsuits filed against auto dealerships, his (in Massachusetts) was the only one that did not result in class action status, "because my people loved working at my company and didn’t sign on with enough numbers to become a class action."

"So they sued me individually. I fought it because I thought it was wrong."

According to the Ohio Capital Journal, the jury's focus in the Adem and Martinez case was on destruction of evidence - monthly overtime reports - but Moreno's payroll company was able to reproduce the data at issue.

Moreno accused Superior Court Judge Michael D. Ricciuti of tainting the jury. 

In an order on pretrial motions Ricciuti wrote, “This case turns on the parties’ credibility where thorough cross-examination, aided by contemporaneous documents is likely to be crucial. Plaintiffs should not be forced to take Moreno’s word about the substance of these reports.”

"(Ricciuti), who was an absolute lunatic activist made all kinds of accusations and tainted the jury and we lost," Moreno said of the case that was tried two years ago.

In November, Moreno faces Democrat Sherrod Brown, who is seeking a third term,