Press & News

Chicago Daily Law Bulletin Analyzes Firm’s Annual Workplace Class Action Report
02/24/2006

An article published in the February 22, 2006 issue of the Chicago Daily Law Bulletin (“Pay claims lead class action surge:  report”) outlined the findings of the Annual Workplace Class Action Report recently published by the firm’s complex and class action practice group.

Class-action lawsuits involving wage and hour issues outpaced all other workplace class-action litigation in 2005 and accelerated from past years, especially at the state level.  An upsurge in wage and hour class actions, often over alleged unpaid overtime, began in California in 2001.  Eighteen months ago, the increase in such suits was seen in New York, New Jersey, Florida and Texas, and six months ago, in Illinois.  “Here in the Circuit Court of Cook County, two to three wage and hour class-action cases are filed a day,”  says Jerry Maatman.

The article iterates the report’s finding that corporate counsel need to pay attention to and fix “class action vulnerabilities” to avoid litigation.  Areas that corporate counsel should examine are payment and promotion policies for females and black employees, and the manner in which the company pays overtime and who it seeks to exempt from overtime pay requirements.