Are you searching for California Private Attorneys General Act defense attorneys with a proven track record of success?  What are the keys to defending a Private Attorneys General Act (PAGA) lawsuit or class action?

The experienced San Diego employer defense attorneys at the Watkins Firm have decades of experience representing, advising and defending Southern California employers in any legal issue or dispute including PAGA actions.  PAGA lawsuits are some of the riskiest issues for San Diego and Southern California employers.  A PAGA action puts your employee(s) (under the guidance of plaintiff’s counsel) in the position of serving as a proxy for California’s Attorney General.  A PAGA action allows the plaintiff(s) to bypass crucial elements of contractual agreements such as agreements to bypass arbitration and pursue an aggressive course of investigation into many aspects of potential employment-related violations on behalf of the State.  It may surprise you to learn this allows a successful employee plaintiff to keep part or all of any financial damages, penalties or monies recovered as a result of the PAGA action.

As your California Private Attorneys General Act defense attorneys we have the ability to provide extensive protections while working to reduce or completely eliminate any liability or exposure you may have as an employer through mitigation or pre-trial corrections.  We are often able to help to develop evidence the employees themselves violated clearly established policies and procedures established in your own employee handbook.  We work to prevent the certification of a class which is one of the strongest defenses available in a class action.

Pro-Tip: “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 PGA 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.

Everybody knows about class certification. You can’t have a class and you have, 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 a certified, 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 find out if everybody in the company wants to really join this class.

Best case scenario is the client gets that, notice that little letter in the mail, contacts us, we check everything out. And if there’s anything wrong, we cure it. We fix it. We work with our client to take massive action to remediate the situation before the plaintiffs can even file an action. Every possible issue they’ve complained about has been fixed, cured and remedied. So the motivation is denied. The plaintiff’s council, the big payoff is gone. And once that plaintiff’s lawyer knows that they’re not going to make a lot of money on it. They usually don’t want to spend much time.

What’s the worst thing that can happen in a PAGA class action?  If we are not completely successful preventing the class certification and we are in the meat of it and our clients have some liability. That’s when we have to come up with strategies for settlement and mediation, and which mediators are knowledgeable in the, in the community, in this kind of law, those who have a pulse of the community, an understanding of what are and are not reasonable resolutions. Of course the plaintiff’s lawyers are going to want as much as possible, but what’s fair? What’s reasonable? What our clients can afford? What kind of curing measures we can put forward? And knowing that the actual judges that we have, and how they’ve ruled in the past helps us to to advise our clients on what’s the best way through this. And that’s the worst case scenario. When we’re sitting there talking about giving away our clients’ money, for honest mistakes, that can be punitive in nature. That’s the hardest. And that’s the worst case scenario. And we try our hardest not to get to that point.  In most cases, it doesn’t!” – Dan Watkins, Founding Partner

The experienced California Private Attorneys General Act defense attorneys at the Watkins Firm also work with our employer clients to develop and implement processes and strategies to reduce or eliminate present or future exposure to these risk-laden actions. We invite you to review our podcast Episode 18 – Private Attorneys General Act (PAGA) as well as the strong recommendations of our clients and contact the Watkins Firm or call 858-535-1511 for a complimentary consultation today.