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.

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.