The plaintiffs researched histories of property transfers for defendants Bridgewater & Associates and Bridgewater Title Co., Chichester said. A seven-member jury decided the case after a weeklong trial.

Chichester said that as the real estate market began collapsing in 2008, and the need for property title searches began drying up, Bridgewater began to take advantage of its employees, increasing the amount of work that company executives demanded from title examiners on their payroll without compensating them either with straight time or time-and-a-half pay for overtime hours they put in.