Amazon is not violating Colorado law by failing to include a specific category of employee labor — working on holidays for time-and-a-half pay — into its calculation of overtime, a federal judge ruled earlier this month.

U.S. District Court Chief Judge Philip A. Brimmer dismissed a proposed class action lawsuit against the retail giant, brought by an employee of an Amazon warehouse in Aurora. The company calculated it would be liable for nearly $9.2 million in penalties alone if the judge were to find the company violated the Colorado Wage Act.

Instead, Brimmer determined Colorado law to be silent about how employers should treat "holiday incentive pay" when calculating overtime and, therefore, plaintiff Dan Hamilton had no claim to the $143.54 he alleged Amazon had personally shorted him.

"Mr. Hamilton’s response does not identify a Colorado statute or regulation requiring employers to include premiums for working on holidays when calculating an employee’s regular rate of pay and does not cite any caselaw in support of such a requirement," Brimmer wrote in a March 3 order.

The lawsuit involved the calculation of overtime compensation using the "regular rate of pay." If an employee works 40 hours in a week at $20 an hour plus an eight-hour shift that pays $25 per hour, the base compensation would be $1,000. The regular rate of pay would be the base compensation divided by total hours worked, or $20.83 per hour.

The employee would also receive overtime pay, amounting to...

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