California Employer Litigation
Sloat Law Group offers employers excellent representation and a vigorous defense in civil litigation relating to labor or employment law disputes. Our Litigation Division, with over 70 years of combined trial and litigation experience, defends employee claims related to wage and hour, discrimination/harassment, contract disputes, and retaliation in federal and state courts.
Defending Claims Of Wage & Hour Violations
If your employee or employees accuse you of violating California’s wage and hour laws, you can find yourself in a difficult and vulnerable position. Our attorneys represent businesses accused of violating wage and hour regulations, and other labor laws, on these and other subjects:
- Meal and Rest Periods
- Tips
- Sick, Vacation, Disability and other paid Leaves
- Reimbursement of Business Expenses
- Overtime
- Piece rate, flat rate, commissions, and on-call or standby time
- Breach of Contract/Contract rights concerning pay
- Severance pay
- Paystub compliance
Any defense against wage and hour violations will start with a careful analysis of your business practices and policies, which may bolster your defenses to thse claims. Our attorneys will work to develop strong arguments to fight those allegations, based on the facts of your specific case.
Defending Harassment & Discrimination Claims
California protects certain classes of employees from harassment and discrimination. Harassment occurs when an employer creates an environment that is hostile to an employee based on the employee’s membership in a protected class. Discrimination claims also involve protected classes. Employers discriminate against employees by making employment-related decisions that negatively impact the employee based on one of these same protected categories:
- Age (40 and over)
- Ancestry, national origin (including language)
- Disability (including mental and/or physical, genetic, cancer, HIV/AIDS)
- Domestic Violence Victim Status
- Gender identity, gender expression
- Marital Status
- Medical Conditions (including genetic characteristics/information)
- Military or Veteran Status
- Political Affiliation (when a civil rights violation)
- Race, color
- Religion, creed, ethnicity
- Requests for certain leave
- Sex, gender (including pregnancy, childbirth, breastfeeding or related medical conditions)
- Sexual orientation
If your business is facing allegations of workplace harassment or discrimination, do not take such claims lightly. Our attorneys regularly defend employers and their managerial employees against allegations of workplace harassment or discrimination. If you are facing such allegations, contact our employment law attorneys right away.
Defending Misclassification Claims
Sometimes as a business, you may benefit from hiring an independent contractor to perform certain work-related tasks for your company. When hiring an independent contractor, you do not need to provide employment benefits to that worker. For instance, your independent contractors will not receive health insurance, workers’ compensation coverage, or retirement benefits. However, if you engage in a relationship with your independent contractor that treats that contractor as an employee, you can find yourself facing claims that you have misclassified and, therefore, denied benefits to which that worker is entitled. Ensuring that you understand the boundaries of an independent contractor relationship will help you avoid such circumstances. Contact our employment law attorneys to discuss ways in which you can protect yourself from employee misclassification claims.
Whether you are being investigated, being audited, facing claims from disgruntled employees, or trying to establish or terminate employment relationships for your business, Sloat Law Group can help you. Call us at 760-779-1313 to speak to an employment law attorney today.
Our employer clients appreciate our litigation tactics and strategy, as well as our record of favorable outcomes in litigation. Our successes within the last few years include some complete dismissals of employee lawsuits with no settlement funds paid and extremely favorable settlements through negotiations or mediations, saving our business clients hundreds of thousands of dollars.
