Press & News

Annual Workplace Class Action Survey Noted in Daily Labor Report [Jerry Maatman Quoted]
02/21/2007

The February 20 issue of the Daily Labor Report highlighted the firm's annual workplace class Action Litigation Report.  "Litigation: Growth of Workplace Class Actions Likely to Continue in 2007, Study Finds" notes: "The Third Annual Workplace Class Action Litigation Report, released in January by the national law firm of Seyfarth Shaw, showed that the plaintiffs' bar was aggressive in its pursuit of collective workplace litigation, winning significant verdicts, injunctive relief, settlements, and court rulings. Federal agencies, including the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs, and other Labor Department agencies, were no less aggressive in their enforcement efforts on behalf of American workers. Indeed, the report noted that the top 10 government-initiated settlements during 2006 resulted in $467 million in monetary relief.   In light of such findings, the report suggested that the defense bar work just as aggressively to mitigate litigation vulnerabilities during 2007.

Gerald Maatman, general editor of the report and co-chair of Seyfarth's complex discrimination litigation group, said the most striking finding in the report pertains to the rise in "mega class actions,'' which cross state lines and attack large corporations. Not only have the number of those cases, grown, so has the complexity of the individual claims. He said the lawsuits combine claims under multiple statutes, requiring a cross-disciplinary understanding of substantive employment law by defense counsel. At the same time, Maatman said, the rulings rendered during 2006 demonstrate that employers are finding success at defeating motions for class certification of "mega class" claims. In other cases, he said, employers have at least found success limiting the scope of the class or the scope of the claims. "With one jurisdictional exception, employers have done exceedingly well in defeating attempts by plaintiffs' lawyers to certify these 'mega class actions,' " Maatman told BNA in an interview. "The one exception is the Northern District of California, where plaintiffs continue to do well as a result of that jurisdiction and [U.S. Court of Appeals for the] Ninth Circuit case law.'' Maatman said a second important development during 2006 was the growth in wage and hour litigation. He noted that wage and hour cases significantly outpaced employment bias claims and ERISA claims both in terms of cases filed and procedural rulings issued by judges. "In any region they [wage and hour claims] were up both at the federal level and at the state level,'' Maatman said. "We're talking about almost a class action a day in California. Unlike past years, we saw significant filings in five other states--Texas, Florida, New Jersey, New York, and Illinois.''