MSNBC (04/18/12) Eve Tahmincioglu

Workers tired of working off the clock are filing lawsuits. The latest one, which is being reviewed this week by the U.S. Supreme Court, is looking at whether pharmaceutical company representatives are owed overtime pay, even though the company they work for says they’re salespeople and not entitled to it. The U.S. Department of Labor brought 11,990 overtime cases in 2011, up from 8,788 cases in 2010. Richard Alfred, an attorney with Seyfarth Shaw, says overtime lawsuits filed in federal court climbed 15% in 2011 from a year earlier. He says wage-and-hour lawsuits overall have climbed 325% since early 2000.