California Protection and Investigation Services, Inc. Faces Overtime Pay Allegations

A class action overtime lawsuit recently filed in California (Case No. 19STCV14719) alleges that California Protection and Investigation Services, Inc. failed to pay overtime. Security guards employed at the company filed the proposed class action complaint against the security services company.

Plaintiffs in the suit claim that California Protection and Investigation Services, Inc. failed to provide meal and rest periods for employees.

The Proposed Class Action Against California Protection and Investigation Services, Inc.: Overtime Violations

•    The company failed to provide mandatory meal and rest breaks to security staff.

•    Failed and Continued to Fail to Accurately Calculate and Pay Employees for Overtime Hours

•    Intentionally and Knowingly Failed to Compensate Employees at the Correct Rate of Pay for Overtime as a Matter of Company Policy

According to the proposed class action’s allegations, California Protection and Investigation Services, Inc.’s security guards claim they were unable to take off duty meal breaks because their work schedules were too rigorous and did not allow for the required meal breaks.

To comply with California labor laws, employers must provide employees who work for more than five hours during a shift with a thirty-minute uninterrupted meal break before the end of the employee’s fifth hour of work. They must also provide the employee with a second uninterrupted meal break when an employee is working a shift of 10 hours. According to the complaint, the security company did not provide additional compensation to the security guards who forfeited their mandatory meal breaks even though additional compensation is required by law in this situation.

If you have questions about what to do when your employer is violating California Labor Code or if you are not being provided with proper overtime compensation, please get in touch with the experienced California employment law attorneys at Blumenthal Nordrehaug Bhowmik De Blouw LLP today.

Spectraforce Technologies, Inc. Faces California Overtime Lawsuit

Spectraforce Technologies, Inc. is facing a class action lawsuit alleging that the company failed to provide required meal and rest periods, as well as overtime wages to employees. The class action overtime lawsuit is pending in the Santa Clara County Superior Court (Case No. 19CV346604).  

Employees Claim that Spectraforce Technologies, Inc. Violated Labor Law by:

•    Failing to Accurately Calculate and Pay California Non-Exempt Employees for Overtime

•    Continuing to Inaccurately Calculate and Pay Overtime Wages

•    Failing to Accurately Calculate Wages for Overtime Hours Worked

•    Failing to Provide Plaintiff and Other Class Members with Required Rest Periods

•    Failing to Provide Employees with Off-Duty Meal Breaks when Completing Shifts of over 5 hours

Non-Exempt Employee: An employee who is entitled to overtime pay according to the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). Employers are required to pay time and a half the employee’s regular rate of pay when they complete more than 40 hours of work in any given week.

Overtime Rate of Pay: According to California State Law, employers are required to provide employees with overtime compensation at one-and-one-half times their regular rate of pay.

Overtime Pay Calculations: To accurately calculate overtime pay, employers must start by determining the employee’s regular rate of pay. The regular rate of pay should include the hourly rate plus any value associated with nondiscretionary bonuses, shift differentials, and other specific forms of compensation.

Meal Break Law Requirements: If a California employee works more than 5 hours in a day, they are entitled to a meal break of at least 30 minutes. The meal break must begin before the end of the fifth hour of the shift. Employees can agree with their employer to waive the meal break is they do not work more than 6 hours in a workday.

If you need additional information about the class action lawsuit against Spectraforce Technologies, Inc. or if you need answers to questions about wage and hour law or receiving just overtime compensation, please get in touch with the experienced California employment law attorneys at Blumenthal Nordrehaug Bhowmik De Blouw LLP today.

Wavedivision Holdings, LLC Faces Class Action Lawsuit for Alleged Meal and Rest Break Violations

Wavedivision Holdings, LLC, a video, internet and phone services company, faces a class action lawsuit alleging that they failed to provide required overtime wages, legally required off-duty meal breaks and mandatory rest periods to their California employees. Blumenthal Nordrehaug Bhowmik De Blouw filed the class action on February 9, 2018.

The class action against Wavedivision Holdings, LLC is currently pending in the San Mateo County Superior Court, Case No. 18CIV00684.

Allegations in the class action include:

·      Failure to lawfully calculate overtime

·      Failure to pay overtime

·      Refusing to allow employees to take off duty meal and rest breaks

·      Refusing to fully relieve employees of job duties for meal periods

Details in the lawsuit indicated that employees were sometimes unable to take off duty meal breaks or rest periods. When they were provided with meal breaks, they were sometimes not fully relieved of their job duties. According to allegations made in the class action lawsuit, Wavedivision Holdings employees were required to work over five hours in a shift with no off-duty meal break; a violation of California labor law.

California labor law requires that all employers offer their employees who are working shifts over five hours in length with an uninterrupted meal break of at least thirty minutes before the employee’s fifth hour of work is completed. California employers are required to provide a second uninterrupted meal break for employees who work ten hours.

According to the lawsuit, class members were paid using a non-discretionary incentive program. Under the program, Wavedivision Holdings offered employees hourly compensation with additional incentive compensation if they were able to successfully meet performance goals put in place by the company. Yet when the company calculated the overtime rate of pay for these same employees, the company allegedly did not include the incentive compensation as part of the “regular rate of pay.” In doing so, the company or Defendant, Wavedivision Holdings LLC, was miscalculating their employees’ overtime pay rate as a matter of policy.

If you have questions about how to file a class action lawsuit or how to qualify as a member of a class action lawsuit, please get in touch with one of the experienced class action and employment law attorneys at Blumenthal Nordrehaug Bhowmik De Blouw LLP.

Stanford Students File First Class Action Suit in Largest College Admissions Scam

The University of Southern California, Yale and the University of California Los Angeles (and other institutions) are facing class action lawsuits filed by two Stanford University students alleging that the schools engaged in massive admissions cheating by allowing wealthy parents to pay bribes in order to gain a spot for their children at some of California’s top schools.

The federal complaint was filed by Erica Olsen, from Henderson, Nevada, and Kalea Woods, from San Diego, California. The two students claim that they were denied a fair opportunity to be admitted to their top college choices and that their Stanford degrees were devalued due to criminal racketeering charges that were leveled by federal prosecutors.

Olsen claims that she applied with standardized test scores she described as “stellar” as well as athletic talent, but her application was denied by Yale. Olsen claims that if she had been aware that Yale’s admissions system was corrupted by fraudulent practices, she would not have wasted the approximate $85 on the application fee. Since she did pay the required application fee, she feels it is her right to complain that she did not receive a fair admissions consideration process; which is what she paid for.

Woods stated in the complaint that she was both exceptional student and a talented athlete, but that she was unaware that the University of Southern California admissions process was unfair and rigged; allowing parents to buy their kids’ way into the university with bribery and dishonesty.

Woods also claims that her Stanford degree is worth less than it should have been as prospective employers now question whether or not she was admitted to the university on her own merit or if she simply had rich parents who purchased her admission.

It is questionable whether or not the students will be able to successfully demonstrate that their Stanford degrees have been devalued due to the recent scandal. Experts suspect it may be less difficult to argue alleged fraud as a result of the lost application fee money, but there is still the question of whether or not people would have applied anyway. If anything, the lawsuit’s discovery process will most likely make it clear that the universities were aware of fraudulent activity in their admissions processes and this information would be beneficial.

Defendants named in the suit include UCLA, USC, the University of San Diego, Stanford, University of Texas at Austin, Wake Forest University, Georgetown, and Yale. The class action seeks certification to include any person who applied to these schools between 2012 and 2018. The class action seeks a return of admission and application fees and unspecified damages to punish defendants and prevent similar conduct in future. The scandal that created the stir involved proctors changing test results, fabricating credentials, and in some cases even doctoring images in order to make non-athletic students appear athletic.

If you have questions about how to file a class action law suit or if you need to discuss how to seek certification, please get in touch with one of the experienced class action and employment law attorneys at Blumenthal Nordrehaug Bhowmik De Blouw LLP.

MedMen Faces Class Action Suit Listing Multiple Employment Law Violations

The Los Angeles-based company, MedMen, recently completed an acquisition in Emeryville, California and now has one of only two adult-use licenses in the Emeryville area. They are planning further expansion in 2019. The Emeryville dispensary plans to open in East Bay in 2019. In addition to eight other dispensary listings in Southern California, MedMen operates in: Arizona, Nevada (3 locations), and New York (4 locations). The company also holds licenses that give them the power to operate up to 70 facilities in 12 different states. They aggressively support progressive marijuana laws and lead the industry in terms of assets and operations in the U.S.

The company is also facing their fair share of trouble; listed as the defendant in a class action suit filed on behalf of two former employees of the West Hollywood dispensary located at 8208 Santa Monica Boulevard. The class action lawsuit could potentially include about 100 employees (current and former).

The West Hollywood location holds a medical cannabis license has been granted a temporary license to sell recreational marijuana pending the allocation of permanent recreational cannabis licenses that are scheduled for December 18th, 2018. The lawsuit alleges that the business violated a number of employment laws regarding employee work hours, wages and required breaks. For instance, the company required that their workers work overtime hours without paying them overtime wages. The company also allegedly failed to give breaks required by California state employment law. Workers also allege that the company failed to provide accurate payroll records.

The lawsuit holds the potential for fines/payouts to employees totaling $50 for their first pay period during which they were underpaid and $100 for each additional pay period during which they were underpaid. MedMen has faced similar claims of employment law violations in the past. In fact, California MedMen employees have also filed claims that the company made paycheck deductions for tips paid by credit/debit cards. In some cases, the practice even resulted in negative paychecks.

If you are not being paid overtime wages or if you need to discuss California wage and hour law with an experienced California employment law attorney, please get in touch with us at Blumenthal Nordrehaug Bhowmik De Blouw LLP.

Victims of Thomas Fire in California File Class Action Lawsuit Against California Utility

Nine plaintiffs allege that Southern California Edison, a Southern California utility company, sparked the biggest wildfire the state has seen in modern history. The joint suit cited negligence in regard to the fire ignited on the evening of December 6th, 2017.

The plaintiffs claim that if the utility company had behaved in a responsible manner, the Thomas Fire could possibly have been prevented. According to the lawsuit, negligence was apparent when the company performed construction near a facility without necessary safety precautions and in an unsafe manner that resulted in nearby vegetation catching fire. It was also noted that the company failed to maintain its facilities (both overhead electric and communications) in a safe manner and that Southern California Edison did not remove trees and/or vegetation that was encroaching on space surrounding utility poles.

The lawsuit also lists two other Defendants: Ventura City and the Casitas Municipal Water District citing their failure to have functioning generators available when they were needed that would have been able to help with water pressure during the fire.

The Thomas Fire left destruction in its wake. 242,000 acres were burned through. More than 1,000 structures of various sizes and purposes were destroyed or left with extensive fire damage. And thousands and firefighters and countless resources were required to extinguish the flames. The Thomas wildfire left more than 100,000 Californians displaced – their homes either destroyed or unlivable.

One major problem during the fight to extinguish the fire was a lack of water pressure being supplied to fire hydrants located in hillside neighborhoods and canyons of Ventura. Plaintiffs find it shocking that the City of Ventura failed to have a working backup generator on hand when it was desperately needed.

The utility company declined to comment on the pending lawsuit as the Cal Fire investigation is currently in progress. Ventura City’s Water General Manager expressed his sympathy for those who lost their homes and/or were displaced by the Thomas Fire and added that the city doesn’t comment on pending litigation, but that they did commend both the firefighters and Ventura Water crews for their response during the emergency.

The Municipal Water District also declined to comment citing the pending nature of the litigation. The lawsuit seeks unspecified monetary damages.

If you have questions regarding corporate liability, or filing a class action lawsuit in California, please contact one of the experienced employment law attorneys at Blumenthal Nordrehaug Bhowmik De Blouw LLP.