Often, we draft or review independent contractor agreements, which are similar to employment agreements. Many companies prefer to hire independent contractors rather than employees because it is cheaper. However, there is danger in doing so in that if the contractor is found to be an employee (by the courts or a governmental agency) the employer may […]
Misclassified Employees in a Class Action
Quite often it happens that an employer has a policy that is applicable to a group of employees. That is where, typically, the class action vehicle may come in where a group of workers are harmed in the same way so that a single lawsuit against the employer can be brought on behalf of the […]
Employee classifications: weekend hours for managers
Frequently we’ve had cases where employees with employee classifications have claimed they were hourly , non-exempt employees and that they were told that they need to respond to text messages and e-mails over the weekend. They’d complain, “Hey, wait a minute. You’re not paying me for the time that I worked on the weekend, and […]
Unpaid Overtime Cases: Calculating Damages
Q: In an unpaid overtime case, when your law firm successfully gets an exempt employee properly reclassified as non-exempt, can what the employee recovers from their employer in terms of unpaid overtime and other damages be substantial? They can be. The size of the recovery largely depends on how many hours of overtime the employee […]
Misclassified Exempt Employees and Unpaid Overtime
Q: If an employee is classified as exempt and working over 40 hours per week, how would your law firm make the argument that they are entitled to overtime? A: The first consideration we take into account is how much the employee is getting paid. One of the requirements to being exempt in California is […]
