Is it possible to prevent PAGA disputes for a California employer?  San Diego and California employers are looking for effective strategies to eliminate wage and hour exposures, and to avoid an FMLA lawsuit or dispute whenever possible.  Employees are using much more aggressive tactics against their employers and former employers, especially when discipline or termination is a part of the equation.  How can a California employer comply with all of California’s complex laws and regulations for employers and reduce or eliminate exposure to an PAGA lawsuit?

The experienced PAGA and employer defense attorneys at the Watkins Firm have more than four decades of experience and expertise advising and counseling California and San Diego employers in wage and hour, federal, state and local employment compliance.  Employers must be prepared to more carefully prepare and enforce all employment related policies, procedures and practices in order to avoid the rising number of disputes and litigation actions filed each year.  Our legal team works with our clients to manage every aspect of the employment relationship, from the interview, to the employment contract itself, employee handbooks, policy and procedure manuals and HR processes.

In order to prevent PAGA disputes for a California employer we must provide focused attention to the critical issues surrounding every employee interaction, from hiring and training, to disciplinary actions and termination.  FMLA leave is commonly abused as a defensive tactic when an employee faces a poor review, performance improvement metrics and ultimately termination.  Employees are becoming much more savvy to the types of tactics that set an employer up for an FMLA lawsuit or litigation.  In our work, we help clients to tighten every aspect of the employment relationship to manage and carefully document expectations, eliminate loopholes, and keep employees on the straight and narrow.

Wage and hour and timeclock violations are more prevalent in the workplace today.  It’s not just problems with employers, it extends to the employee who is attempting to rig the system, alter time card events for clocking in and out, missing meal breaks and attempting to increase opportunities for overtime.  How do you prevent PAGA disputes for a California employer or company?  Thorough preparation, excellent employment documentation and managed execution of employee management, discipline and termination.  Deploy a specific system to make overtime policies clear, manage time card and record keeping, and carefully craft all communications with employees.  It is possible to prevent abuse, and to eliminate the potential for an employee claim arising from any PAGA-related dispute.

Pro-Tip: “Typically, it’s wage an hour wage and hour issue, and everything that goes with that reporting classification, whether you are getting proper rest time, meal time, any possible technical failure by the employer and how they treat the employees can end up as a PAGA violation.  Health, and safety can go that way. It can also go through OSHA, but it’s basically anything you can imagine in the employment arena all the way down to unfair competition.

What are the risks and exposure for an employer in a PAGA action? I think that failure to act immediately is the biggest risk. You get a claim, you get a letter, you get a notice and you don’t take action right away. That’s your opportunity to cure, fix and get out of the way of the PAGA case. The lawyers who are hoping to sue you don’t make any money if you act quickly, but if you delay and push back or ignore them, then they gain bigger rights and more motivation.

PAGA actions are class actions. We do class action defense in many areas, including even organic labeling and other types of class actions in a PAGA suit or class action. What are some of the best available defensive strategies?  Most people are aware of class certification. You can’t have a class unless you have like people in a like situation that have suffered the same harm. And a lot of times plaintiff lawyers will try to group everyone together in hopes of getting the judge to certify a class, so that it’s assumed that everyone has suffered the same harm. And most employers don’t treat each employee the same. I mean, they’re all individually hired and contracted for. And sometimes the problems that are being alleged are not universal. So we want to fight that right away. And we also want to do our discovery and expose all the reasons why the class shouldn’t be certified.  No class, no PAGA action.” – Dan Watkins, Founding Partner

We invite you to review our podcast Episode 18 – Private Attorneys General Act as well as the strong recommendations of our clients and contact the Watkins Firm or call 858-535-1511 for a complimentary consultation today.