Ex-Dairy Worker Fights Back After Company Responds to Wage Suit by Trying to Have Him Deported

Jose Arias, former Northern California dairy worker, recently won a million-dollar settlement against his ex-employer’s attorney. Arias originally filed a lawsuit against the dairy alleging wage theft. According to the plaintiff, Arias, the company’s attorney responded by contacting immigration officials to try to get the ex-dairy worker deported.

The retaliation suit against his former employer, Angelo Dairy of Acampo was already settled when the $1 million settlement was announced in the suit against attorney Anthony Raimondo. The settlement followed a federal court’s decision to reinstate Arias’ case. Representation for the plaintiff see the case as an example showing employers that they can’t game the system by cheating their employees of wages and then responding to complaints with threats to deport them.

The attorney who allegedly made the deportation threat, Raimondo, has 20 years of legal experience representing dairies out of Fresno. He denied retaliating against Arias and claimed that his former insurance company insisted the case be settled. Raimondo insists that he is the only person involved in the case who did not break the law.

Arias, an undocumented immigrant, started work with Angelo Dairy in 1995 as a milker. The dairy was supposed to file documents with federal officials that would verify Arias’ work authorization. Instead the employer used his undocumented status as a weapon to limit Arias’ options and keep him in their employ. In 1997, Arias told a company owner that he had a job offer from another dairy. The owner advised him that he would report the other dairy to immigration authorities if Arias took the offer. Arias stayed in his current position, but sued Angelo Dairy in 2006. He claimed the company’s failure to pay overtime and provide required meal and rest breaks were violations of labor law. In 2011, just prior to going to trial, Arias claims Raimondo, the dairy’s lawyer, contacted immigration agencies to purposefully derail the case.

Arias settled the wage suit and dropped his claims against the dairy farm. He says he did so, in substantial part, to avoid deportation. The court documents state that Raimondo contacted ICE a minimum of five times regarding other employees. He also allegedly confirmed his practice of contacting ICE in a June 2013 email to Legal Services Corp., in which he stated that he had acted in the past to deport workers who were suing his clients. Recent statements from Raimondo describe the events differently, insisting that the idea that he retaliated against Arias is ridiculous.

If you are experiencing retaliation in the workplace or if you need to discuss filing suit against an employer due to employment law violations, please get in touch with one of the experienced California employment law attorneys at Blumenthal Nordrehaug Bhowmik De Blouw LLP.

Do After Hours Phone Calls Qualify for Overtime Pay?

The fact that the majority of workers carry a cell phone 24/7means that employers have the ability to reach workers at any time on any day. The problem is that some employers actually expect workers to respond at any time on any day (or night) as well. So, what about that random 1am phone call from the manager on duty? Does that count towards overtime hours?

24/7 access to their employee workforce is going to come at a cost to employers as they will need to pay for the time or risk potential class litigation regarding unpaid wages. Starbucks Corp. and Evolution Fresh (a Starbucks subsidiary) recently settled an overtime suit that delivery drivers brought against the company claiming that they were not compensated for company calls they took outside of their scheduled shifts. Another major corporation, ABM Industries, is facing similar problems. It looks like ABM will probably be settling (to the tune of $5.4M) to resolve claims that they failed to reimburse cleaners for data and cell phone costs. ABM employees claim they were required to use their cell phones for clocking in, clocking out, and other work necessities and job duties.

So, when do employers need to pay workers for after hour calls? What about after-hours emails? How is “compensable time” determined?

Determining compensable time depends on which law is at play: the federal Fair Labor Standards Act or an equivalent state law. Once this is determined, the question becomes whether or not the employees are covered by the law. If the employee is covered by the law, is their work considered “de minimis” or too infrequent or insignificant to require payment?

This type of overtime case depends heavily on the facts and details of the specific case. How the details are presented can be crucial and the court’s decision has been known to fall on both ends of the spectrum. Nearly everyone has a cell phone and this makes it easy to reach an employee with a phone call, text message or email during a break or after they are off work and off the clock. Some employees feel pressured to respond to employer contacts even though they aren’t clocked in – others may be required by company policy or expectations to respond.

If you have questions about why you aren’t paid overtime or if you need to talk about what constitutes off the clock work, please get in touch with one of the experienced California employment law attorneys at Blumenthal Nordrehaug Bhowmik De Blouw LLP today.

California Catholic School May Face Lawsuit After Firing Teacher

Kristen Biel, a former teacher at St. James Catholic School in Torrance, needed time off from her job after recently being diagnosed with breast cancer in Spring 2014. She was in need of a double mastectomy, chemotherapy and radiation treatments. Biel requested a leave of absence during the upcoming fall semester from Sister Mary Margaret Kreuper, the school’s principal. Just weeks later, Biel was fired.

Last month, Biel was granted the right to sue the school in federal court for discrimination when an appeals court overturned the lower court decision that she was a “minister” in the eyes of the court and barred from suing a church-operated school. This isn’t the first time St. James School and Sister Mary Margaret Kreuper have faced legal allegations. Kreuper, along with another nun, was accused of stealing from student tuition checks, fees and fundraisers for the school for over a decade. The issue was recently announced by school officials.

Kreuper, 77 years old, and her vice principal, Sister Lana Chang, 67 years old, essentially rerouted hundreds of thousands of dollars into a church bank account that was overlooked by many for years. They then used this overlooked account to pay for personal expenses. Parents were advised of the situation at a meeting in Redondo Beach recently. Parents asked about the situation said that the nuns were open in talking about gambling trips to Las Vegas and Lake Tahoe vacations, but that they claimed Chang had wealthy relatives that paid their expenses.

Auditors working alongside the Archdiocese in Los Angeles have accounted for $500,000 of stolen funds, but the number will most likely continue to grow as the investigation continues. Initially, the archdiocese intended to handle the investigation internally and not press charges, but later they changed course stating that they would be cooperating with police and that they plan to be a complaining party in the criminal case. Criminal complaints have not yet been filed. The police investigation is ongoing. Police are requesting copies of old tuition checks from parents and details regarding any cash donations.

Biel, 53 years old, started working at St. James in March 2013. She was hired as a long-term substitute teacher. By the end of the year, she was hired as the school’s full-time fifth-grade teacher. She received a formal, positive evaluation from Kreuper that praised her “good work” in promoting a safe and caring learning environment. Areas of improvement included in the one official review noted two students were coloring in their books and some of the students had cluttered desks.

When Biel was diagnosed with breast cancer in April 2014, she advised Kreuper she would start treatments within the month. A few weeks later, Kreuper advised Biel she wouldn’t be renewing her contract and claimed it was because it would be unfair for student to accommodate her leave by having two teachers in one year. She also accused Biel of not running a strict classroom even though that complaint was not included in Biel’s one official evaluation.

Biel filed a federal lawsuit against St. James in 2015. She included allegations of discrimination, retaliation, and wrongful termination in violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act.

If you need help because you have been wrongfully terminated from your job or if you are being discriminated against in the workplace, please get in touch with one of the experienced California employment law attorneys at Blumenthal Nordrehaug Bhowmik De Blouw LLP today.

The California Supreme Court’s Dynamex Decision Impacts Standards

The California Supreme Court’s decision on Dynamex Operations West, Inc. v. Superior Court of Los Angeles is affecting legal standards determining whether a worker should be legally classified as an employee or an independent contractor. The company in the case, Dynamex, put a test in place as a standard determining classification that made it more difficult for businesses to classify workers as independent contractors.

For example, Lawson v. Grubhub, Inc. was a case heard before U.S. Magistrate Judge Jacqueline Scott Corley. It was a closely watched case out of California federal court. The judge on the case noted in a new order that her decision on the case may have been different if the Dynamex opinion had already been recorded. While Judge Corley declined to vacate her earlier finding, it is likely the order will be reversed upon appeal.

In Lawson v. Grubhub, Inc. the plaintiff, Raef Lawson was a GrubHub driver who claimed he was misclassified as an independent contractor. When GrubHub moved to dismiss the suit in early 2018, the district court found the company did not “control” Lawson’s work – siding with the company. Lawson appealed. After the Dynamex decision, Lawson filed a motion. He sought relief from the judgment on record. Lawson argued that his case would have had a different outcome if the California Supreme Court had adopted a new legal standard for use when determining the classification of workers as employee or independent contractor. The court responded by allowing that a careful consideration of the issues and with the benefit of an oral argument, the motion raises substantial issue, but they declined to definitively rule on vacating the judgment. They court noted that deciding whether or not the Dynamex ruling should apply retroactively is a decision to be made by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.

If you have questions about misclassification or if you need to discuss how you can seek justice when your employer refuses to provide you with overtime pay, please get in touch with one of the experienced employment law attorneys at Blumenthal Nordrehaug Bhowmik De Blouw LLP.

$107,000 Payment to Settle San Ysidro Wrongful Termination Suit

Danielle Clark is the former district official who was fired in 2016 without explanation and just 11 days after the San Ysidro school board honored her for hard work and dedication. Two years later, the San Ysidro school board approves a $107,000 payment to settle her wrongful termination suit. Clark was the district’s special education director, but only for a short time period (less than five months). After she was abruptly let go from her position, she sued the district for wrongful termination.

Danielle Clark’s termination occurred under Julio Fonseca, the former Superintendent. After his resignation last year, a state audit was conducted. The audit revealed that Fonseca’s top deputy was overpaid $324,000 (including life insurance and vacation days). The district will be undergoing an additional state audit looking at past contracts and vendor payments in connection to the school’s construction projects.

The $107,000 payment to Clark was approved by the school board as part of their regular monthly meeting. Clark last heard from the board 3-4 weeks previously and was actually expecting a settlement of at least $150,000. She was not aware that any payment had been formally approved until she was contacted by the media. As of yet, she has not received any payment from the media.

Very few details were made public regarding the wrongful termination suit and the negotiations leading to the agreement intended to resolve the lawsuit. The line item on the board’s meeting agenda actually made no mention of Danielle Clark, her wrongful termination suit, or even her former job or department. Clark’s settlement was listed with her name amid 140 other listed expenses on a document that was one of 200 pages of material and backup material for the monthly board meeting. The vote at the meeting was 3-0. Two of the board members were absent (Marcos Diaz and Antonio Martinez). The board gave approval for the district’s attorneys to settle the case in May 2018.

If you need to talk to an experienced California employment law attorney because you have been wrongfully terminated from your job, please get in touch with Blumenthal Nordrehaug Bhowmik De Blouw LLP.

Amazon May Have Beat the Class Action, but Still Has to Deal with Joint Employer Issue

In recent news, Amazon ended up beating the class action because the proposed driver class didn’t have enough in common, but the individual wage, overtime and meal break claims survived. Class claims were dropped in the delivery driver lawsuit that sought wages, overtime and relief for a number of different alleged labor violations. But the question of whether or not Amazon and other big businesses could be exposed to significant liability remains.

On December 6th, a federal judge found that California Amazon drivers could not seek class status because proposed class members (including current and former employees of Amazon and a number of staffing businesses subject to Amazon delivery guidelines) didn’t have enough in common. The federal judge on the case, Judge Maxine M. Chesney, of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District, did leave room to for a potential finding that Amazon is a joint employer alongside 1-800-Courier. If the curt were to come back with a joint employment finding, it would mean that both Amazon and the courier company were Jasmine Miller’s (the plaintiff) formal employers. This precedent would leave major businesses regularly depending on contracted or subcontracted labor in California facing significant implications.

The judge stated that Miller’s working conditions (as an alleged joint employee of Amazon and 1-800-Courier) may not match the working conditions of other drivers at Amazon contractors who are also allegedly jointly employed. This resulted in a failure of the test for class action status requiring that all putative class members face essentially the same experiences and conditions.

Miller is moving forward with claims that she was not paid minimum wage, overtime wages, provided required meal breaks and rest periods, and accurate wage statements. Miller has until January 4th, 2019 to amend her class complaint per Judge Chesney. The judge added that the joint employment will likely hinge on an assessment of how much control Amazon has over the working terms and conditions of employees at the courier company (or other similar companies providing Amazon with workers).

If you have questions about California employment law or if you need to discuss overtime violations, or wage and hour violations in the workplace, please get in touch with one of the experienced California employment law attorneys at Blumenthal Nordrehaug Bhowmik De Blouw LLP.

Did You Sign an Arbitration Agreement?

Did you know that millions of US workers are currently “barred” from the court system? Did you know that you may be one of them and not even realize it? Approximately 60 million American workers have signed arbitration agreements or arbitration clauses and they may not have even realized they were doing so.

Close to 50% of all non-unionized workers employed at companies in the United States are subject to arbitration agreements (according to the Economic Policy Institute). This number has more than doubled since the early 2000s. Major employers across the nation have adopted them as standard, including: Uber, Google, McDonald’s, Starbucks, Walmart, Macy’s, and more.

The increase in the use of mandatory arbitration agreements is making it increasingly difficult/impossible for employees to seek justice when they are victims of wage theft, discrimination in the workplace, retaliation, harassment, overtime violations, etc. The recent Supreme Court ruling allowing employers to prohibit class-action claims from workers in arbitration only increased the incentive for companies to include arbitration clauses right in their employment contracts for new hires.

The practice was once limited to business to business contract disputes, but it is now extending to legal disputes with employees and consumers. This change occurred after a significant Supreme Court ruling in 2001 related to sexual harassment. In Circuit City Stores Inc. v. Adams, an associate working at a Circuit City store in California sued the company for sexual harassment. The associate’s name was Saint Clair Adams. He said he was harassed by his co-workers because he was gay. He, like all the other employees of Circuit City, had signed an arbitration agreement stating that all disputes with the company must be resolved through private arbitration. The company argued their case in federal court, insisting that Adams was required to move his claim to arbitration due to the agreement.

The judge on the case sided with the plaintiff, Adams, and cited the Federal Arbitration Act. The Federal Arbitration Act allows companies to resolve contract disputes through arbitration but includes a provision that excludes employment contracts. The judge’s ruling was later upheld by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.

The argument didn’t die with the appellate court though. Circuit City took the case to the Supreme Court where the lower court’s ruling was overturned – extending the reach of arbitration clauses to nearly all employment contracts. The justices based their decision on a close reading of the employment exclusion in the Federal Arbitration Act, which reads, “but nothing herein contained shall apply to contracts of employment of seamen, railroad employees, or any other class of workers engaged in interstate or foreign commerce.” The justices interpreted this to mean that “transportation workers” were exempt from mandatory agreements; and that non-transportation workers would be required to take their claims to arbitration.

Another Supreme Court ruling in May 2018 made it even more difficult for workers to seek justice or force a company to change working conditions. The case was Epic Systems Corp. v. Lewis and the court decided that it is legal for employers in the United States to prohibit employees from joining together to file suit against the company claiming discrimination, wage theft, or other common workplace violations.

Do you have questions about how to deal with workplace violations when there is an arbitration agreement in place? Call one of the experienced California employment law attorneys at Blumenthal Nordrehaug Bhowmik De Blouw LLP.