Class Actions
State and federal laws require that employers pay their workers for all hours worked, provide meal or rest periods, pay wages at regularly scheduled periods, and meet basic standards of health and safety.
Often these types of claims can be “too small” financially to make them effectively litigated a single employee and companies will not pay attention to these claims.
However, under state and federal law, current or former employees can band together to combine their claims or sue on behalf of all employees at a company. This is known as a class action lawsuit. Class actions are designed to allow even a single employee to bring the lawsuit and represent all of the other harmed employees. This greatly increases the use of the class action lawsuit because it lets employees avoid the cost and difficulty of brining suit on behalf of each and every coworker.
Class actions make the employer sit up and take notice as they can join together tens, hundreds, or even thousands of employees’ claims, resulting in six and seven figure payouts by companies. Additionally, because they are so costly to companies, class actions are often the only way to create systemic change in a company’s illegal policies and help not just the plaintiff but all employees.
Common Types of Class Actions
If you are the victim of workplace abuse (like not getting paid, getting harassed, discriminated against, or wrongfully terminated), you may not be the only one! You can get justice for yourself but also for all the other employees that were victimized as well.
Most employment claims can be brought as class actions, but some of the more common claims are:
- Unpaid off-the-clock work (including security inspections, rounded time, or time card fraud)
- Unpaid overtime wages
- Failing to provide meal and rest breaks
- Misclassifying employees as exempt or salaried
- Failure to provide reasonable seating
- Failing to reimburse business expenses such as mileage, cell phone bills, internet, etc.
- Failing to pay earned commissions
- Failing to pay women or minorities the same pay as men when they do the same work (equal pay or discrimination)
Key aspects of class actions:
Certification: For a lawsuit to proceed as a class action, the court must certify the class. This is a legal determination that the case is appropriate for class action treatment.
Commonality: Class actions require issues that are common to all class members. The claims or fairly common throughout all employees.
Notice to Class Members: Once a class is certified or settled, class members must be notified. You may have previously received a class notice in the mail.
Representation: The class is represented by the named plaintiffs (also known as class representatives) and their attorneys. The class representatives have a duty to protect the interests of the class members.
Join forces with King & Siegel LLP and make a stand. Call (213) 788-1627 today for committed advocacy from our experienced Los Angeles class action attorneys. Your fight for justice starts with a single step.
What is a Class Representative?
The class action is brought by the Class Representative—who is the person suing on behalf of him or herself and all other employees, current or former, who were harmed by the same types of illegal actions.
Since the class representative is seeking to represent and recover money on behalf of all class members, they are required to always considers the interests of the class just as the class representative would consider his or her own interests and fairly look after the other class members.
They must also have claims that are “typical” of those of the class. This means that they must have the same kinds of harms as the other class members and have been subjected to the same illegal policies and practices.
Eventually, the class representative must be formally approved of by the court in a process known as certification. In this process the court will confirm that the representative has protected the class and will continue to protect their interests.
Class representatives are also entitled to request an “incentive award,” which compensates them for their time and effort spent advocating on behalf of the class. These awards typically range from $7,500 to $10,000. However, all incentive awards must be approved by the court, who has the power to modify the amount awarded.
Private Attorneys General Actions (“PAGA”)
The Private Attorneys General Act (PAGA) is a California law that allows employees to file civil lawsuits against their employers for Labor Code violations. Similar to class actions, PAGA lawsuits are brought on behalf of a group of employees but unlike class actions, PAGA actions are a “representative action” where the PAGA plaintiff steps into the shoes of the State of California to seek penalties and punish labor code violations by employers.
PAGA lawsuits are filed on behalf of the employee, other “aggrieved” employees, and the state. “Aggrieved” employees are any employees who have suffered any labor violation, regardless of whether the suing employee suffered that violation—meaning that PAGA actions have a farther reach than class actions for large companies with many different divisions and locations. Importantly, unlike a class action, an employer cannot force you to agree to waive your right to bring a PAGA lawsuit.
The penalties in PAGA are based on pay periods worked by all employees in the year prior to the PAGA filing, so the larger the company, the more it potentially owes. By law, the amounts recovered in a PAGA settlement are split between the State of California and the PAGA employees with the State getting 75% of the net settlement amount and the PAGA employees getting the remainder.
Because of its unique representative nature, PAGA plaintiffs do not have to meet many of the legal requirements that are required in class action. Thus, in many cases, they are easier to file and employees are more quickly able to seek justice on behalf of a much larger group of employees than in a class action.
How to Open a Class Action Lawsuit?
Begin a class action lawsuit by having your personal injury lawyer file a claim with the court. Your lawyer will request the court to certify the claimants as a class. Once certified, other injured parties may join your case.
Stand up for your rights!
King & Siegel is a leader in prosecuting class action lawsuits in California, Washington, Colorado, and New York. We have resolved numerous class action and PAGA actions on behalf of workers, collectively recovered over $36,000,000 on behalf of tens of thousands of employees.
Our attorneys fight toe-to-toe with the nation’s largest employers to enforce your right to a fair paycheck and a safe workplace. Because many wage violations impact large groups of workers, class action lawsuits are an effective tool to hold employers accountable. They have the benefit of resolving all claims at once and save individual employees from needing to hire and pay their own lawyers. They also force employers to pay for the harms they cause, rather than allowing them to pay off a single employee and continue the same illegal practices.
Contact Us Today for a Free Class Action Case Review
Reach out to us today to see if you have class action claims and can serve as a class representative.
The following class actions are filed and pending. If you have information relating to any of these cases or believe you are a class member, please help us hold your employer accountable by contacting us as soon as possible.
