Successes 2010
The sheer volume of settlements in 2010 crept up on us. We had planned to handle fewer but larger cases. But while the cases got bigger, the caseload did not get smaller. In addition to the court cases the firm resolved, some of which are listed below, more than a dozen others were settled without the need to climb the courthouse steps.
Gone are the days when the firm was proud to break a million dollars in a year in settlements and verdicts. When it comes to verdicts, settlements, and severance agreements, millions of dollars is now the standard — and that does not include the money our clients have earned on their own once we have negotiated them around or defeated non-competition agreements.
The following are some of the cases that came to settlement or verdict in 2010. Please note that cases can take anywhere from a few months to several years to reach their conclusions.
United States District Court (W.D.Mich.)
10-346
(Overtime and Retaliation)
Our client worked for a company that had fast service oil change stores. Because the company was losing money as a result of the bad economy, it moved took its hourly employees and put them on salaries. Although they were working some 55 hours a week, they were not paid overtime. When our client filed his case, the company fired him. We then filed an additional claim for retaliation. We settled the case to his satisfaction.
United States District Court (D. Idaho)
09-585
(Police Misconduct)
Our client was visiting his girlfriend when several police officers broke down the door, tackled, him, Tasered (electrocuted) him several times. Despite his absolute compliance with all orders from the officers, the officers then placed the Taser against his testicles and threatened to shock him again. Although the case was brought in Idaho, we were asked to join as counsel because of our experience in civil rights law. Perhaps because of just how serious the case was and the publicity it was receiving, we managed to settle it to our client's satisfaction in just over three months.
United States District Court (N.D.Ill.)
07-674
(Family and Medical Leave Act)
This unusual case addressed the question of how to compute the number of employees in a company for purposes of the FMLA when the Plaintiff works from home. Our client was a sales representative for a company that placed elderly people in nursing homes. She was terminated while on FMLA leave. The company defended on the basis that it was not covered by the FMLA because although it had more than 200 sales representatives across the country working by computer, it did not have the requisite 50 employees within 75 miles of our client's place of work. This complex issue required a two step-process to resolve. First was the question of where our client's place of work was. Because she worked off of a computer system at the company's home office in Seattle, Washington, we argued that this was her "place of work." But the company claimed that it still was not covered by the FMLA because it had less than 50 employees in Seattle. We then successfully argued that employees across the country also had to be counted as employed at in Seattle, because they, like our client received their work from the same computer system. Once the Court denied the Motion to Dismiss the case, we settled it to our client's satisfaction.
United States District Court (N.D.Ill.)
10-2164
(Uniform Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act)
Upon returning from military service in Iraq, our client's employer refused to give him work for an entire month. When it finally did put him back to work, the company first had him doing different work and then put him in a lower position than he originally had. Worse, even in the lower position, it failed to pay him "escalator" pay. (An employee returning from military service must be paid as if he had received all raises offered while he was one leave.) A month after that, the company moved him to the less desirable night-shift, and eventually terminated him without cause. We settled the case to his satisfaction.
United States District Court (W.D.Tex.)
10-0077
(Overtime)
In this Texas overtime case our clients were high end travel consultants who put together international vacations for an elite clientele. The company claimed that they were exempt from the overtime requirements of the Fair Labor Standards Act because they were on a salary. But the law says that you can only be paid a salary and no overtime if you have special discretion which they did not have. We settled the case to their satisfaction.
United States District Court (N.D.Ill.)
06-6024
(Family and Medical Leave Act)
Our client worked on the railroad — all the livelong day. As a result of mental pressures he took intermittent (a day here and day there as necessary) FMLA leave. But the company told him he had to take full FMLA leave (so that he had to take every day off of work until he could return.) As a result, in order to save his job, his doctor released him to go back to work. The company still refused to let him back to work insisting that it needed more information from the doctor. We argued that under the law, once our client produced a "simple note" from his doctor, the company had to take him back. The company disagreed saying that because the job that our client did was a dangerous one, a simple note was inadequate. The Court agreed with us and found that the company had violated the Family and Medical Leave Act. Before the damages (the amount of money owed to our client) was finally determined, we settled the case to our client's satisfaction.
| 
