Employment Class Action - Correcting Workplace Injustice
by
Randy Collins on Apr. 19, 2017
Employment Employee Rights Employment Wrongful Termination Lawsuit & Dispute Class Action
Summary: Some employers have policies that often times affect a large group of employees in a harmful or disadvantageous way. Filing individual cases in the court can be inefficient as it will flood the court of cases with the same issue against the same employer.
Some employers have policies that
often times affect a large group of employees in a harmful or disadvantageous
way. Filing individual cases in the court can be inefficient as it will flood
the court of cases with the same issue against the same employer. When this is
the case, it is considered more efficient to file an employment class action.
Though employment class actions takes time to get resolved (usually takes
years) and can cost more money for litigation, it is still more efficient for
the court.
What are the requirements to file for
employment class actions?
Uncovering discriminatory practices,
unfair wages calculation or other policies that employers’ practice that
affects you, and probably more employees in the same company is often the start
of employment class actions. If your employer has violated state laws and/or
federal laws on labor that has affected a lot of employees and the court’s
adjudication is necessary to correct the injustice compared to a simple
compensation and damages fee. There must also be more than 30 employees or
plaintiffs involved so as to qualify as an employment class action. The issues
that affect the group of employees or class must also be more significant compared
to the individual issues or issues of each plaintiff. Here’s some of the list of cases for
employment cases.
How do employment class actions work?
There is step by step process for
which an employment class action is taken. These steps are listed below:
1. Filing your case and response of the defendant - This is the first step, the plaintiffs, through their lawyers file their complaint in the court and the defendant is informed and must also file a response to the complaint.
2. Discovery - This is the legal term used for the phase where the lawyers are collecting data, evidence, or other pertinent information to your case. It will include reports from experts’ statistical analysis, depositions and others. The class representatives, or the people named as plaintiffs in the case that represents the “class”, must help during this process.
3. Certification - Your lawyers will also file a request for a certification so that you can proceed with the class action. In this step, the court must decide that your case has merits and has all the requirements that are necessary for a class action. If the judge does not approve the request for certification for one reason or another, then the plaintiffs can separately file for individual lawsuits.
4. Notification - After a judge decides that the employment class action has merits and has all the requirements necessary, the court requires that a notification must be given to members of the class affected by the issue pursued by the class. The affected members will then choose whether they want to join the class action or not.
5. Trial - Once members of the class has been finalized, a trial will be held. This is where the evidence and information compiled during the discovery is presented. The defendant will also present their defense of the case. In the end of a trial, a verdict is reached. Either the class action is dismissed or they succeed.
6. Final order - This is when the court has decided the steps that the defendant, if found guilty, must make in order to correct the injustice done to the plaintiffs. The settlement is finalized and if policies must be amended, the court will also make the final order on the matter.
7. Appeals - Whoever losses in the initial trial is also given a chance to appeal its’ case in a higher court.