California Labor Code Lawsuit Alleges RFI Enterprises Failed to Pay Overtime

A California Labor Code lawsuit was recently filed against RFI Enterprises. According to the suit, the company wrongfully denied their employee overtime.

Plaintiff, Brian P., was employed at RFI Enterprises’ San Jose location. The company is a multi-systems integrator established in 1979 that does business across the nation with offices in California, Washington and Nevada. They install and monitor fire and life safety solutions. They offer a number of different systems: life safety systems, electronic access control, intrusion detection, closed circuit television, alarms, and fire safety. Their monitoring center provides 24/7 support to their various systems.

According to California labor law, employers are required to pay overtime. The required overtime pay rate is one and a half times the regular rate of pay for any hours worked over eight in one day or 40 in one week. According to the plaintiff in this case, the company did not factor wage premiums or shift differential pay into the regular rate of pay used to calculate their overtime pay rates.

According to the overtime lawsuit against RFI Enterprises, the company calculated overtime pay rates that were based on the employees’ base hourly rate of pay. This resulted in a lower overtime pay rate below the minimum overtime pay rate required by law. California labor law also requires that employers provide their employees with accurate wage statements. The plaintiff in the case also alleges that the employer was in violation of this regulation.

Not only does the plaintiff claim that the company was in violation of overtime pay rates and the regulation requiring that they provide accurate wage statements, but that the company did so maliciously and intentionally. According to the complaint, the company was unwilling to current their unfair business practices.

RFI Enterprises, the Defendants, allegedly engaged and have continued to engage in both unfair and unlawful business practices as detailed above. The plaintiff proposes to represent a class of employees in the California class action. A subclass has also been proposed to represent employees paid shift differential pay after Jan. 12, 2017.

If you fear your employer is in violation of California labor code or you have questions about what makes an employee exempt from overtime, please get in touch with one of the experienced California employment law attorneys at Blumenthal Nordrehaug Bhowmik De Blouw LLP.

$13 Million Verdict Awarded to UCLA Doctor in Retaliation and Gender Discrimination Case

A California man was awarded a $13 million verdict in February 2018 after filing against a former employer, The Regents of the University of California (UCLA). The plaintiff, Dr. Lauren Pinter-Brown, alleged that UCLA discriminated against her on the basis of her gender and then retaliated against her for complaining about the problem. The escalating issue eventually led to Dr. Lauren Pinter-Brown’s resignation.

The doctor started work with the UCLA Medical Center in 2005. She was the Director of the UCLA Lymphoma Program. During her entire tenure at UCLA, she received exemplary peer reviews, awards and even accolades. For her first 8 years with the university, Pinter-Brown was one of only two senior female faculty members in the program.

When Pinter-Brown raised harassment concerns with a male co-worker, she became the target of various workplace audits, her research privileges were suspended, her title was taken, etc. Throughout the ordeal, Pinter-Brown’s reputation was irreparably harmed. The university made no apparent efforts to solve the problem or alleviate the situation even though Pinter-Brown made both verbal and written complaints about the issues. The plaintiff claims that she was forced to “play dead” at work in order to avoid further confrontations or an escalation of the problem the university chose to ignore until she eventually simply resigned from her position.

In February 2018, a California jury found her Pinter-Brown’s favor on claims of discrimination and retaliation. Pinter-Brown was awarded $3,011,671 in lost earnings from the university and an additional $10,000,000 in damages for her emotional distress. The total awarded was over $13 million.

The plaintiff’s attorney was quoted discussing the doctor’s time with the university and describing her has an “outstanding employee.” The plaintiff’s legal counsel felt it was very clear that Pinter-Brown experienced workplace retaliation as a direct result of openly complaining about harassment by a male colleague. The jury of her peers from California vindicated her complaints and those in favor of Pinter-Brown hope it can be another step in fixing a wide-spread problem with ignoring the problem of gender inequality.

If you have a problem with workplace retaliation or if you have attempted to resolve employment law violations in the workplace unsuccessfully, please get in touch with one of the experienced California employment law attorneys at Blumenthal Nordrehaug Bhowmik De Blouw LLP.

Transamerica not a Fiduciary in Fee Case According to Court

In recent news, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals remanded the ERISA suit against Transamerica Life Insurance Company (TLIC) back to a district court with instructions to dismiss it. In the case, 401(k) participants allege that TLIC and affiliates violated the Employee Retirement Income Security Act when charging fees and in the administration of specified investment accounts.

According to the complaint, TLIC was in violation of ERISA because they charged fees on separate accounts on top of fees charged by managers of underlying investments, processing “Investment Management Charge” on separate accounts, receiving revenue sharing payments from underlying investment account managers, failing to invest in the lowest prices share class of mutual funds, and failing to pass savings in fees along to plan participants.

The group of plaintiffs previously filed a separate lawsuit listing John Hancock as the defendant and including similar allegations. In the case against John Hancock, the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals found that the company was not acting as a fiduciary regarding the allegations creating the foundation of the case. The 9th Circuit agreed with the 3rd Circuit in that finding the service provider to be a fiduciary would create absurd situations. Service providers negotiate fees. If they were simultaneously responsible as fiduciaries, they would need to promise that their fees were not any higher than the fees of any competitor. This would blow their ability to negotiate at arm’s length with an employer out of the water. It would also leave any employer who agreed to a fee structure the option to later sue to have it lowered simply by invoking the fiduciary obligation of the administrator. Therefore, the court finds that the service provider owes no fiduciary duty in regard to the negotiation of fee compensation because the trustees had the option to reject the provider’s product and select a different provider. The choice was in their hands. The other allegations failed to stick for the same reason. TLIC did not have the fiduciary duty in regard to the other matters either. 

If you need assistance considering ERISA violations or if you feel your employer has breached their fiduciary duty, please get in touch with one of the experienced California employment law attorneys at Blumenthal Nordrehaug Bhowmik De Blouw LLP.

Systematic Pay Discrimination Against Women at Vice Media?

Elizabeth Rose, a former female employee for Vice Media, alleged that the company discriminates against women on their workforce. In fact, in the lawsuit filed for pay discrimination, she stated that the company systematically and intentionally pays their female employees less than their male counterparts in the workplace.

Vice Media operates Viceland, a cable channel, and also produces two programs for HBO. Rose worked at the millennial focused media company in both New York and Los Angeles (2014-2016). She was employed as a channel manager and project manager.

Rose’s complaint was filed in Los Angeles County Superior Court. In her complaint, Rose alleges that as part of her job, she received internal memos showing salaries of approximately 35 employees. These notifications portrayed a clear pay disparity with women making far less on the job than male employees doing the same or nearly the same work. During her time at the company, Rose became aware that a male subordinate that she had actually hired was making $25,000 more per year than her. He was later promoted to be her supervisor. A male Vice Media executive advised Rose that the man was a good fit for male clients personality-wise.

Rose claims in the lawsuit that Vice Media violated equal pay laws in both California and New York as well as being in violation of the federal law. Three proposed classes would enable women employed by Vice Media for the last six years to join the suit. Between the three proposed classes, more than 700 women could be eligible to join the lawsuit.

Vice Media officially responded that they were reviewing the complaint made by Rose. They also stated that they are committed to providing a respectful, inclusive and equal workplace for employees. The company defended their claim by advising that a pay parity audit was actually started last year and that the company has a goal of 50/50 male/female representation at every level of the business by 2020. They have also recently created a Diversity & Inclusion Advisory Board to address similar issues.

If you fear you are not being paid fairly in the workplace, or if there are other employment law violations in your place of employment, please get in touch with the experienced California employment law attorneys at Blumenthal Nordrehaug Bhowmik De Blouw LLP.

Stericycle Employment Class Action Suit Settled for $2 Million

A preliminary settlement agreement has been reached between the parties of the Stericycle employment class action lawsuit. The suit was brought against Stericycle, Inc., a medical waste company, with workers alleging that the company refused to provide them with required meal and rest breaks, did not pay overtime for overtime hours worked, and failed to compensate workers for time they were required to spend changing into their “work clothes.”

Approximately 985 California employees make up the class. The class was originally represented by plaintiff Sergio Gutierrez. He filed the putative class action in summer of 2014. Since that time, Gutierrez passed away. Two other plaintiffs were put forward as replacements: Kenneth Moniz and Kevin Henshaw. Both are expected to receive up to $10,000 for time and effort spent bringing the action and in exchange for general release of claims. This is in accordance with the proposed $2 million settlement as stated in the agreement.

According to the complaint, Stericycle utilized a practice of “rounding” payroll times which shorted their workers’ wages, and employees were not completely compensated for their time spent dressing in the required work clothing (donning and doffing). The company also allegedly did not include all worker bonuses in their overtime rates, failed to provide compensation for vested vacation payments, and didn’t offer required meal and rest periods to their workers as is required by employment law. 

Stericycle employs staff at more than 28 California locations and handles the collection, processing and disposal of medical waste. Class members include Stericycle employees working out of any California Stericycle location from August 14, 2010 through September 18, 2017. According to the motion for approval, Stericycle offered individual settlement amounts to certain class members (starting in 2015) attempting to minimize the lawsuit’s exposure. Those settlements payments amount to a total of $460,000. Individuals who took money from Stericycle under individual settlement deals will be provided with a reduced portion of the settlement for their worked shifts covered by prior corporate agreements with Stericycle.

Workers involved in the suit also claim that the company uses a point system to reward employees for avoiding incidents in the workplace. Points under the Stericycle system were converted to cash credits that could then be used on Amazon. Plaintiffs contend that these amounts should have been calculated into the regular rates of pay used to come up with overtime pay rates.

If you have questions or concerns about your employer’s overtime calculation, or if you are not being paid overtime in accordance with state and federal employment law, please get in touch with one of the experienced California employment law attorneys at Blumenthal Nordrehaug Bhowmik De Blouw LLP.

ERISA Lawsuit Targeting Oracle Corp. Achieves Class Action Status

Allegations that Oracle Corp. did not do enough to monitor their retirement plan’s investment fiduciaries led to ERISA suit v. Oracle. Evolving since 2016, the ERISA lawsuit was recently granted class action status – potentially benefitting thousands.

Allegations included in the suit:

Fiduciaries acting on behalf of Oracle Corp. (Defendant) failed in their duties by investing in funds/investments that did not maintain the best interests of plan participants/investors. ERISA (the Employee Retirement Income Security Act) requires that fiduciaries maintain/manage investments in the best interests of investors. Plaintiffs were participants in the company’s 2016 benefit plan. They allege that the company failed to make prudent investment decisions and incurred tens of millions of dollars of excessive fees – effectively breaching their fiduciary duties.

According to the ERISA suit, Oracle paid a number of fees for record-keeping to Fidelity, Plan trustee, on a revenue sharing model that was calculated on Plan assets instead of the number of participants. Without a fixed fee per participant, the expenses were inflated and resulted in unreasonable fee amounts. With drastic increases in the fund assets, Fidelity’s revenue skyrocketed as well without any increase in the services they were providing.

In addition to failing to adequately monitor fiduciaries, plaintiffs allege that Oracle also kept poorly-performing funds that caused plan participants to suffer significant losses: Artisan, PIMCO and TCM.

Oracle argued that Fidelity was compensated with reasonable fees for the services provided and moved to have the suit dismissed. This motion to dismiss was denied in March 2017. In June 2017, plaintiffs moved for class certification and the judge approved class certification in January 2018.

The judge did specify that class certification reserved was to be reserved for claims related to excessive fees. The Judge found the original class definition to be too broad. The judge created two other classes for plan participants that invested in the “under-performing” funds (Artisan and TCM), but did not create a third for the allegedly under-performing PIMCO fund because there was not class representative available.

If you have questions or concerns about ERISA suit class certification or fiduciary duty violations, please get in touch with one of the experienced California employment law attorneys at Blumenthal Nordrehaug Bhowmik De Blouw LLP.

$140M ERISA Class Case Filed Against Home Depot: Over 200,000 Retirement Plan Beneficiaries Represented

In an ERISA suit filed in April 2018, plaintiffs Jaime H. Pizarro and Craig Smith allege that The Home Depot places employees in poorly performing funds and also causes plan participants to overpay for Robo Investment Advice. The class complaint was filed on behalf of the plaintiffs and close to 200,000 current and former plan participants in the U.S. District Court of the Northern District of Georgia. The complaint was filed against The Home Depot, the 401(k) plan’s investment and administrative committees, and investment advisors from two different companies, Alight Financial Advisors, LLC and Financial Engines Advisors, LLC. The complaint alleged that the Home Depot committed two major violations:

1.     Violated their basic fiduciary duties under ERISA

2.     Abused their employees’ trust through mismanagement of participants’ 401(k) retirement plan

Allegations state that the Home Depot chose a number of funds for the employee 4019(k) that performed poorly and allowed investment advisers to charge their plan participants exorbitant fees. It is also alleged that the company completely disregarded a kickback scheme that was occurring between a plan investment adviser and the plan’s bookkeeper. Estimated losses for employees affected are significant. One respected financial information and technology organization concluded that the average plan participant earned $100,000 less in retirement savings than employees in top-rated retirement plans similar in size. This $100,000 loss is the equivalent of about 18 additional years on the job for each Home Depot plan participant. The plaintiffs seek $140 million in damages.

Home Depot has over $6 billion in assets and is one of the largest 401(k) plans in the country. Counsel for the plaintiffs argue that ERISA fiduciary standards are clear and that while Home Depot should be held to the highest standard, they fall below the lowest standard in this particular case. According to information presented in the complaint, Home Depot’s plan investment options appear to consistently underperform their own benchmarks and those of comparable investment opportunities. Plaintiffs claim this is largely due to the company’s practice to select investment options without due diligence and fail to appropriately monitor performance.

If you need information about ERISA fiduciary standards or if you seek class action status for violations in the workplace, please get in touch with one of the experienced employment law attorneys at Blumenthal Nordrehaug Bhowmik De Blouw LLP.