Seven Hispanic former employees of a Milwaukee-area subsidiary of City Wide Insulation of Madison will receive nearly $19,000 each in the settlement of a federal lawsuit.

The lawsuit claimed the employees, who worked for Builders Insulation of Germantown, did not receive overtime pay and that the company violated the federal Fair Labor Standards Act.

Terry McGann, a Chicago attorney representing the workers, said two key rulings by U.S. District Judge Lynn Adelman excluded the workers ' immigration status from the case.

"This is a decision that hopefully will be used beyond the seven people we 're representing, " McGann said. "When you look around the country, you constantly have a group of attorneys who want to chip away on this prohibition on (using) immigration status. "

Adelman ruled that immigration status was not relevant to the workers ' efforts to collect overtime pay and exposing it could discourage workers from asserting their rights.

The company argued that the employees were not entitled to overtime pay because they were compensated on a piecework basis. The company also claimed the lawsuit was improperly initiated by the carpenters ' union to pressure the company into agreeing to bargaining demands.

Jackie Murphy, manager of City Wide Insulation 's corporate office in McFarland, said she could not comment on the case. She said City Wide has about 1,000 employees at 24 offices throughout the eastern half of the country.