Charlotte firefighters get payout in overtime lawsuit after a firing
When an east Charlotte EMT was shorted overtime pay, he complained.
Then he got fired.
Akash Patel worked for Robinson Volunteer Fire Department and Rescue, which sits near Interstate 485 on Mecklenburg Shrine Club Road, for 10 years when he raised concerns over unpaid overtime in a June 2024 board meeting, according to a lawsuit.
Less than two months later, Fire Chief Douglas Jernigan called him into his office and handed him a separation agreement.
It paid him more than $20,000 — which was the amount of overtime wages due — but was void of any reason for his termination.
Patel and Aaron Garbus, a firefighter colleague of nine years, filed a Fair Labor Standards Act lawsuit in Charlotte’s federal court in September.
Now they’ll each receive some of the nearly $63,000 Jernigan and the department have agreed to pay to settle the lawsuit.
Jernigan and the department denied the duo’s claims, according to court documents filed in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of North Carolina.
But Patel will get nearly $18,000 in addition to his separation payout, according to the settlement approved by Senior District Judge Frank Whitney on Wednesday. And Garbus, who quit his job about a year before Patel was fired, will get more than $27,000 in the settlement, according to court documents.
The rest will go to their attorneys, who did not respond to requests for comment before publication of this article.
