Judge Janet Hall has ruled in favor of a class of more than 170 Tournament Directors employed by the American Contract Bridge League (ACBL), allowing them to pursue their overtime claims under the Fair Labor Standards Act.  Peter Goselin, counsel for the plaintiffs in the case Marcus et al. v. ACBL, Docket No. 3:07-cv-01687-JCH, says that the judge's decision opens the door for each of the Tournament Directors - who are akin to referees in professional sports - to seek overtime wages for any workweek in which he or she worked more than forty hours.  The American Contract Bridge League is the umbrella organization that sanctions virtually all professional contract bridge play in the United States.  Tournament Directors are assigned to local, regional and national tournaments that frequently last more than a week.  Until July 2007 the ACBL treated them as exempt employees under the Fair Labor Standards Act and did not pay them overtime wages at one and one-half times their regular hourly rate.  Only after lead plaintiff Peter Marcus complained about the failure to pay overtime did the employer change its practice, while continuing to insist that it does not owe overtime wages for the time prior to 2007.