Payne & Fears LLP has litigated and successfully resolved California and nationwide class actions with up to tens of thousands of alleged class members. We have litigated aggressively and creatively in superior court and federal district court, at the trial court level and on appeal. We have also efficiently tailored our approach to avoid expensive discovery and meet the needs of each client and case.

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Recent Successes

Aug 16

Statewide PAGA Claim Eliminated

Payne & Fears obtained an order striking the representative PAGA claims from a statewide wage-and-hour action, thus reducing size of the case from over 250,000 members to a mere handful of individual claims.

Five former employees sued Payne & Fears’ client, a large multistate retailer, for meal and rest period violations and related causes of action.  Plaintiffs sought to certify a class of over 250,000 current and former employees, and also sought to maintain claims for PAGA...

Attorneys: James L. Payne, Jeffrey K. Brown , Ray E. Boggess
2016

Payne & Fears LLP Obtained Major Win in Widely Publicized Class Action

In late July, the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ended a 23-year bid by a retired employee of the world's largest aerospace company to force the company's pension plan to retroactively recalculate decades of pension benefits she and other retirees commenced while working. The plaintiff, one of the original "Rosie the Riveters" who riveted planes during WWII, and who recently retired from making C-17s at the age of 95, claimed that her and other participants' pension benefits had been underpaid since at least 1989. In 2015, Payne...

Attorneys: Eric C. Sohlgren
2005

Victory in Wage & Hour Class Action

Payne & Fears LLP obtained summary judgment on behalf of its client, a major national manufacturer, in a wage-and-hour class action in which the plaintiffs alleged that the defendant had failed to provide its union-represented employees with meal periods required under state law.  Payne & Fears LLP removed the action (which had been filed in California Superior Court) to the United States District Court for the Northern District of California based on the argument that plaintiffs' claims were preempted by the Labor...

Attorneys: James L. Payne, James R. Moss, Jr., Jeffrey K. Brown