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NEW ORLEANS — Big Lots Inc., the largest U.S. seller of overstocked items, won't have to face a nationwide class-action lawsuit over claims it failed to pay overtime to salaried store managers, a New Orleans judge ruled.

U.S. District Judge Sarah Vance decertified the class-action suit on behalf of 936 current and former employees and dismissed their claims. Two original plaintiffs, John Johnson and Robert Charles Burden, will be allowed to pursue their claims individually, Vance said in a ruling Friday.

"The claims will continue," Michael Josephson, an attorney for the plaintiffs in Houston, said in a telephone interview. "The consequence of Judge Vance's ruling is that now Big Lots will have to defend its conduct in courts throughout the entire country instead of just one court in New Orleans."

Johnson and Burden sued Big Lots, based in Columbus, Ohio, in November 2004 over claims the company misclassified assistant store managers as executive employees and denied them overtime pay and required the managers to work "off the clock."

The suit was certified as a class action on July 5, 2005, and about 1,200 plaintiffs opted into the claims. The number was later reduced to 936.

Big Lots didn't immediately return a phone call seeking comment.