The Watkins Firm provides decades of experience serving our clients as their PAGA and wage and hour defense attorney in San Diego and throughout the State of California.  Federal, state and local laws have recently updated to increase the challenges for all California employers, including continuing increases in the thresholds for minimum wage and overtime wages.

Key Takeaways Regarding PAGA and Wage and Hour Employer Defense Attorney in San Diego and Across California:

• There are constant changes to all federal, state and local laws for California employers.  You need a law firm that can help you to remain up to date and compliant with all legal requirements.
• Employee-related lawsuits, including PAGA actions, unpaid overtime and wage and hour issues, retaliation, and other disputes continue to sharply increase each year in California.
• An effective PAGA and wage and hour employer defense attorney in San Diego and throughout the State of California at the Watkins Firm can help you to prevent wage and hour disputes from arising, and represent you at every step as an employer to prevent issues and resolve them when a dispute occurs.

Defending California Employers in Disputes With Employees

Employee related lawsuits, PAGA actions, disputes and hearings before State and Federal agencies have sharply increased.  Plaintiff’s representatives are actively recruiting employees to pursue unpaid overtime litigation, disputes regarding meal and rest breaks as well as the misclassification of employees as independent contractors.

How is a San Diego or California employer supposed to stay abreast of all the changes, and modify present operational strategies to reflect the new realities of employment law in California?  The Watkins Firm has provided employer defense services to San Diego employers for more than 40 years.  We keep abreast of all changes in federal, state and local laws and regulations and work with our clients to ensure that they are in full compliance.

In addition, a Watkins Firm wage and hour and PAGA employer defense attorney in San Diego will help our clients to implement strategies that are specifically designed to prevent wage and hour related disputes and litigation before it ever arises.  There are many steps a San Diego employer can take to protect themselves and establish clear documentation that has the best chance to hold up in a hearing or courtroom.

PAGA and Wage and Hour Employer Defense Attorney From A to Z

It begins with the initial correspondence prior to employment and continues through onboarding and all subsequent interactions with management.  Employee handbooks should be carefully crafted and consistently updated to reflect these changes.  Management must consistently apply and implement all disciplinary and promotional policies and procedures and go through all changes to the handbook and company policies with each employee.  The employee should initial each change contained within these documents and sign at the bottom to provide evidence that new policies were clearly communicated and understood.

It is important to come up to speed on recent developments regarding arbitration agreements here in California.  A recent United States Supreme Court decision has overturned California laws which prevented employers from requiring arbitration agreements for employees.  California employers must constantly seek the advice and counsel of their attorneys to monitor these changes, discuss existing processes and agreements, and consider changes in order to reduce plaintiff’s lawsuits and PAGA actions and minimize legal and financial exposure in any dispute with an employee.  Ask your Watkins Firm employer defense attorney about the process to customize and implement your arbitration agreement in the immediate future.

Pro-Tip: “There are class actions, PAGA wasn’t even heard of in 20 years ago. And now every seminar you hear about is on PAGA defense. There’s sexual harassment, used to be the young, the big game in town. And now you’ve got to check your paycheck stubs to make sure that they’re not spelled wrong or there’s a missed decibel point, or you’re going to get a class action lawsuit filed against you in, in a multitude of ways.

Obviously we have wage and hour disputes. Those are big. They’re everywhere. They’re big in California, they’re big nationally. Well, wage and hour and overtime are similar, but PAGA, a private attorney general claim against the employer is really heating up. There are law firms that just do plaintiff PAGA work, and they send out constant communications to every area of employee you can imagine. And if anyone’s thinking about leaving your employment, they’re going to be tempted to get a little severance pay involuntary.

And then misclassification of independent contractors. California keeps changing the law and the courts keep changing their interpretation of the California law. So yes, they do make it really hard to stay on top of that. Sexual harassment is always a scary thing because you can get sued for sexual harassment and lose, even though no one was actually harassed because you didn’t investigate it correctly or thoroughly. That’s a separate cause of action. Failing to investigate it according to the law, even if your investigation finds out that it was a false claim, which seems terrible, but it’s true. And then discrimination claims are always there. Retaliation again for somebody making a false claim. If you retaliate against them for lying about you and suing and lying about you, you’re still liable for retaliating against a liar. Again, terrible but true. And then general wrongful termination, how people are terminated and whether or not you comply, you can get stuck with 60 days of pay that you inadvertently didn’t know about.

The ones where you can get stuck for attorney’s fees are the ones you’re likely going to see in a lawsuit or a claim against you because the lawyers rarely go after the ones that are only break time, or only mischaracterization of how you write the paycheck.  If it’s not something with an attorney’s fees clause, you’re not going to see it. So let’s, let’s talk about attorney’s fees clauses and common overtime issues.

In a wage and hour dispute, the remedy is often for us fix the wage in the problem if there is one. And we do that rather quickly because we get so many of them every day.

So, let’s say you are the plaintiff’s lawyer, and you’re suing my client. Well the minute my client knows something, he’s going to tell me. I’m going to look at whatever he or she may have been doing, I’m going to fix it. It’s usually like the remedy is to fix the way the paycheck’s written or calculated or the breaks or whatever, I’ll fix it. We’ll tell our clients to pay the employee the extra $500 before the lawyer can file a lawsuit. And so if there’s no breach at the time of the lawsuit, there’s no attorney’s fees and the plaintiff lawyer’s case goes away.  He has no incentive to bring it!” – Dan Watkins, Founding Partner

An effective PAGA and wage and hour employer defense attorney in San Diego and across the State of California at the Watkins Firm can help you to prevent wage and hour disputes from arising, and represent you at every step as an employer to prevent issues and resolve them when a dispute occurs.  We put you in the best possible position to defend employee allegations and prevent financial losses due to wage and hour litigation.  We invite you to work with us, and learn all you can do to reduce your wage and hour exposures. 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.

Meet Daniel Watkins:

Daniel W. Watkins is a true people person who sincerely listens. He cares deeply about what others are going through.  Dan enjoys digging into the facts and finding creative solutions to problems.  He contributes his insights candidly and constructively.

Dan’s interest in people make him deeply invested in every relationship and his exuberant personality makes him a true litigator. Dan fights for his clients with a fierce and calculated commitment.

Dan has practiced in the areas of business, medical practices and healthcare business, high tech/science, real estate and employment defense law since 1987. He is a trusted litigation strategist and true trial attorney with over 50 jury and bench trials to his credit. Dan has successfully represented both large companies and individuals and achieved substantial victories in well-publicized trials throughout California and the U.S.

He is experienced in business and corporate formation and administration, as well as all forms of alternative dispute resolution, including binding arbitration and mediation.

THE ROAD TO BECOMING A BUSINESS LAWYER AND LITIGATOR

Dan has almost 40 years of experience working with, for and against some of the largest insurance companies in the country. He has successfully tried and litigated cases in the areas of Healthcare Compliance, Commercial Litigation, Unfair Business Practices, Fraud, Breach of Contract, Battery, Premises Liability, Product Defect, Medical Malpractice, Discrimination, Sexual Harassment, Construction Defect, as well as Unfair Competition, Defamation, and Trade Secrets.