Successes

In an employee benefits case brought in federal court under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) against our client, a national retailer, and its group health insurance plan for denial of an expensive surgery as not medically necessary, the court granted judgment in favor of our clients at the...

We were retained as lead counsel in addition to insurance panel counsel to defend two related wage and hour class actions brought against an Orange County car wash owner.  We mounted an aggressive strategy to reduce potential damages, including an audit of payroll and timekeeping records, individual interviews with over...

We represented an Orange County company in a class action lawsuit filed by a former inside sales representative, claiming that he and over 100 other individuals were misclassified as exempt from the overtime requirement.  Given a significant risk of misclassification, and without timekeeping records, we worked with the company to...

After being threatened with a class action, we assisted an Orange County company in performing a confidential internal audit of its overtime regular rate calculations.  We determined that the company had not properly considered bonuses in the regular rate for overtime pay.  This resulted in substantial liability for unpaid wages...

Payne & Fears LLP represented a Bay Area transaction processing service center in a “bonus overtime” class action where the plaintiff alleged miscalculation of the overtime rate in violation of the California Labor Code. Despite the challenge of a nondiscretionary bonus program that supported plaintiff’s theory of the case, our...