Class & Collective Actions

When employers violate the law, their actions often affect many employees at once. Class and collective actions help employees defend their rights as a group, which is more efficient and creates strength in numbers.

Outten & Golden has a distinguished track record of using class and collective litigation to protect employees from systemic abuses, including economic exploitation and discrimination. As a leader in this type of litigation, we have prosecuted many of the most notable cases in the country, resulting in settlements and trial verdicts that have reshaped the landscape of the employer-employee relationship, while returning hundreds of millions of dollars to employees from all walks of life.

What is a class action lawsuit?

Class action lawsuits are used by groups of employees who have lost out on fair wages and compensation or have suffered from a similar harm from the same employer. Essentially, instead of each individual filing a separate lawsuit, one or more lead plaintiffs are designated to represent the entire group.  Without this tool, large-scale employment violations would be difficult to identify and address.

In order to file a federal class action lawsuit, several requirements must be met.

• The group is so large that attempting to join each individual member would not be practical;
• The wrongs involved are common to the claims of the representatives of the class action and its individual members;
• The claims or defenses of the individual members of the class are typical of and well represented by the smaller group; and
• The interests of the larger group of individual members are protected by the smaller group of class representatives.

The types of claims we have addressed include:

• Unpaid overtime and minimum wages.
• Off-the-clock practices (not paying workers for all time worked)
• Time shaving
• Overtime avoidance by misclassifying employees as exempt employees or independent contractors
• Tip theft, misappropriated service charges, and other wage and hour claims on behalf of restaurant and service industry workers
• Unlawful wage deductions
• Promotion and compensation claims based on gender or race, including glass ceilings and sticky floors
• Account assignment and business allocation discrimination in the financial services industry
• Hiring discrimination based on criminal records
• Hiring discrimination based on credit history

What are collective actions?

A collective action is a type of lawsuit that employees may file against an employer who has allegedly violated their rights under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), Equal Pay Act (EPA) or Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA).