Unpaid Wages, Overtime, & Expenses

“Wage and hour” actions can arise from many illegal employer practices, such as employee “misclassification”, where your employer treats you as exempt from overtime pay, or so-called “off-the-clock” practices, where your employer requires you to work uncompensated time outside of your scheduled work day, or where your employer does not fully reimburse you for your business expenses. Some examples of these illegal practices include:

• Time spent before you clock in changing into work gear
• Time spent after you clock out going through security checks
• Your employer does not reimburse you for gas or uniform purchases.

Rudy Exelrod Zieff & Lowe is recognized nationwide as leaders in the field of “wage and hour” class action law. Our expertise is often called upon by public advocacy groups to assist reviewing and commenting on proposed statutory and regulatory changes, as well as to write “friend of the court” briefs on important wage and hour law issues. In addition, we have represented clients bringing claims under California’s Private Attorney General Act of 2004 (PAGA) and we are one of a few firms to have litigated both California and Federal WARN Act claims on behalf of workers who were laid-off without notice.

Our class action cases encompass many industries and occupations, including:

• Insurance claims adjusters
• Refinery workers
• Retail employees
• Pharmaceutical sales representatives
• Computer technology workers
• Financial services professionals

The firm has recovered hundreds of millions of dollars in unpaid wages for our clients. We pioneered the use of class action litigation to recover wages under California law for large groups of employees and have extensive experience taking class action cases to trial and through appeal. We represent workers in cases throughout California and the United States, and have brought some of the largest and most important unpaid wages cases, including a case that resulted in a jury verdict in favor of thousands of insurance claims adjusters, and that ultimately resulted in a recovery of over $200 million for those workers.

We also successfully negotiated, with our co-counsel, a $65 million settlement for IBM computer technical workers who were forced to work unpaid overtime when IBM misclassified those workers as exempt employees. In addition, we led the trial team on behalf of over 100,000 baristas in a tip skimming class action.

Commissions

Commission based compensation is treated like any other employment wages in California, which means it is illegal for an employer to withhold commission payment that you have earned. As a general rule, your employer is required to pay you a commission if you substantially complete the necessary work to earn the compensation. This is true even if you are no longer employed by the company.

If your employer doesn’t pay all of your earned commission when you quit or are terminated, then in addition to any unpaid commissions, your employer may have to pay you “waiting time penalties.” These penalties are 1-day’s wage for every day your employer delays in paying you your regular salary, up to a maximum of 30-days.

California law also requires employers of commissioned employees to put in writing its commission plan, including the method by which the commissions are calculated and paid. If you are a commissioned employee and your employer hasn’t provided you with a detailed written commission plan, you are vulnerable to arbitrary and unfair calculation of the amount of your commission payments, or, worse, the withholding of all of your commission payments.

Rudy Exelrod Zieff & Lowe has successfully represented employees who were unfairly and illegally denied their rightfully earned commissions. We help our clients navigate this all too common employer practice, litigating against startups as well as the largest companies in California. We have recovered millions of dollars in unpaid commissions for our clients, including $717,000 for three account representatives at a tech firm, and numerous high six-figure awards for sales executives.

If you have questions about unpaid wages, overtime pay, commission compensation, or unreimbursed expenses or any other “wage and hour” matter, please contact one of our attorneys.