The number of unpaid overtime lawsuits have significantly increased locally in the past several years.  Why is this?  What can an employer do to prevent unpaid overtime lawsuits in San Diego or anywhere in California?  The answer begins with local Courts who tend to favor the employee position in these matters.  This has emboldened plaintiffs actions and led to a double digit increase in the number of these cases filed annually in our area.

3 Important Takeaways About How to Prevent Unpaid Overtime Lawsuits in San Diego:

• Preventing a lawsuit as an employer begins with the hiring process, includes the employee handbook and policies and procedures, and continues through education and updates.
• Systems and strategies can prevent an employee from inadvertently working overtime, or from doing work from home that can come back to expose you as an employer in California.
• Quick action to call the Watkins Firm the moment you suspect something is up can be the difference between mitigating or remediating the issue quickly, or an expensive lawsuit.

Strategies to Minimize Wage and Hour Risks

What actions can you take to prevent unpaid overtime disputes in San Diego, or wage and hour disputes such as the risk of unpaid overtime litigation exposure and protect valuable company resources?  The Watkins Firm provides specific counsel to our business employer clients beginning with the employment contract and offer letter, continuing through the employee handbook and extending into company policies and procedures.  You will need to consider access to critical company systems such as voicemail, email and application servers after designated work hours.

The strategy is to clearly establish and communicate your company policy regarding overtime pay and associated laws before the employee is ever hired.  Your offer letter should contain clear verbiage specifying the requirement to obtain written permission from your direct supervisor in advance of working any overtime hours.  This should be reflected and clearly addressed in the employment contract itself.  One of the first issues addressed while onboarding the new employee is payment of overtime, when they qualify and the steps they must take to receive advanced written permission to work it.  These procedures and policies must be added to existing policies and procedures manuals as well as the employee manual of existing workers.  Have a small update conference internally, take attendance, and ensure employees sign an acknowledgement that they have received and understand the new policies.

The Watkins Firm Can Help You to Reduce the Risk of Unpaid Overtime Lawsuits in San Diego

One of the ways to prevent unpaid overtime lawsuits in San Diego and across California is to work with your internal management and IT staff to consider access to company systems after work hours.  Your IT staff should develop strategies to identify non-exempt employees who access these systems after-hours so that written action can be taken.  Finally, the time card itself may be modified to compel employees to certify under penalty of perjury that the hours they are reporting are a complete, transparent and full representation and accounting of the actual time worked during the associated pay period.  It is possible to reduce unpaid overtime litigation exposure while increasing employee satisfaction and performance.

Wage and hour lawsuits have skyrocketed over the past few years here in San Diego and across California.  You need the proven San Diego employer defense and wage and hour defense attorneys at the Watkins Firm.  Ask about our more than 35 years of experience and the unique strategy we have developed to resolve our client’s cases quickly and in a cost-effective manner.  The moment you become aware that an employee may have a potential issue, pick up the phone and call the Watkins Firm at (858) 535-1511 for a free consultation.  We can often provide immediate steps you can take to resolve the matter yourself, or mitigate any potential damages.

Pro-Tip: “California is the hardest state in the Union in which to be an employer in this state.  It’s earned. It really is. If you really want to lay it out, most of the politicians are funded by labor unions. They’re all about making it painful for employers to hire them. Anything you do that is technically wrong. The state of California has hired or licensed a whole bunch of lawyers out there to be bounty hunters, and instead of funding any regulation and enforcement, they just said, we can say whatever we want. And there will be a lawyer out there who want to get attorney’s fees out of an employer and be a bounty hunter to try to catch you at the tiniest mistakes and make you pay dearly for it.

The old saying, a good defense starts with a good offense, right? What are the elements of a good offense in your mind for an employer? Employment contracts, human resource manuals, employee handbooks, rules and regulations, training and staying up to speed on the ever-changing laws in California.

Let’s talk about class actions.  That’s how you take a mistake on the way somebody drafted someone’s paycheck in the tune of, let’s say $15 a week. That puts you in a class action that costs you three, $400,000 because of a counting error because they went into a class action. Now, had you had certain types of agreements in place, even some kinds of arbitration agreements, that’s where we’re at now on these laws. You could have cut this off. Also, had you had an experienced employer defense lawyer, from the Watkins Firm, you could talk to about your procedures or maybe our HR person, someone you can call. If there’s any questions or your staff can call, then you won’t have this problem. And if you do, then you shut it down right away.

Fast action in any of these matters is the key. Pick up the phone and call us the second that you think something’s going on. Why does that matter?  The reason is, Judges don’t really like these cases, and there’s a lot of technical reasons to throw them out because they’re turning into sort of a shady PI lawyer, the person that hangs out in the hospital room. These kind of employment lawyers are starting to be like that. And so if they don’t follow all the rules and you get to court in the first couple of months and you file a motion saying you didn’t give the proper notice, you didn’t state the proper cause of action, judge will throw it out.

Or, We can help you to remediate the problem?  If you know ahead of time and have good, experienced Watkins Firm lawyer that’s not just ready to milk you, You’ll get some quick, valuable help.  Because that’s what many other firms won’t do, they won’t propose a solution. They’ll just propose fight, fight. But sometimes we have our employer clients come in and say, ‘no, no, no, don’t pay us all this money. Pay the extra $3,000 in wages. Send out amended pay stubs before you even have to answer the complaint.’ And guess what? All of the causes of action that have attorney’s fees in them are gone. Nobody wants to see you anymore because of that. So yeah, quick action gives your lawyer the right to do things that just destroy a case in the beginning.” – Dan Watkins, Founding Partner

We invite you to review our podcast Episode 39 – What Keeps Employers Up at Night 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 Dan Watkins:

Daniel W. Watkins is a true people person who sincerely listens. He cares about things that occur in other people’s lives. Dan enjoys digging into the facts and finding creative solutions to problems. He is not shy about giving his opinion either.

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 seasoned litigator 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.

In December 2003, Dan commenced litigation against Health South Surgery Centers-West, Inc and its’ subsidiaries, exposing the company’s extensive mismanagement and misconduct of its’ surgery centers. Dan has also been asked by some of California’s largest municipalities and corporations to conduct legally required investigations into matters involving alleged employment discrimination and harassment.