I worked for 5 years for the same company. During this time I worked overtime, but I was compensated for business generated.
Recently, I received a notice of a class action. For not being paid overtime for 5 years, I was offered a total of $300 in the settlement. The legal fees payable to the attorney were over $130,000.
I don’t care what anyone says. This is outright legal extortion on the backs of working people. This is casa nostra. Where are the state attorneys general now? They go after the working people trying to make a living, yet the lawyers have free reign.
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9 Comments
Meredith Williams said on July 6, 2010 at 1:45 pm #
It really is sad! I have seen so many cases like this. It’s especially sad when companies are laying off good employees, while spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to defend and settle lawsuits with no merit!
Nick Hille said on December 24, 2010 at 8:00 pm #
Class Action Law Suits are a waste of time for those who involve themselves in them. The lawyers get rich while those in the class may get a trinket -or nothing.
By signing into the class, they help the lawyers build the suit so their buddies in the courts can approve it and compensate them very generously.
Go buy a lottery ticket. You have a better chance of getting money there than from the lawyers.
Charles said on December 27, 2010 at 9:01 pm #
I can completly understand. A few years ago my wife was in an accident while riding on a Los Angeles MTA bus. A city Ambulence and the L.A. police showed up and the ambulance took her to a distinguished hospital in L.A. they treated her there and let her go home, but when she inquired what the nature of her lawsuit was, she was told by a representitive of MTA that she had never been in an accident. The City of L.A. sent a lawyer to question her, and she asked him “If your company didn’t have the L.A. MTA as a client would you have a job” He truthfully said NO !!
In effect she was sueing the City of Los Angeles, and you know what they say about sueing a city !! Youi just can’t win.
Charles
Charles said on December 27, 2010 at 9:11 pm #
I have a complaint against a contractor who ripped the carpet at the top of the stairs, I fell about 15 feet, and dislocated my shoulder. I’ve broken several bones before, but they didn’t hurt anywhere near that dislocated shoulder.
I should have sued the Contractor, but no-one saw it.
Chuck_les
Peggy Walker said on December 30, 2010 at 8:19 pm #
I’m right there with ya…I worked for Rent-A-Center for 3 years…During the last year we had 4 different managers. I was fired less than a month after the last manager transferred in… some accounts issues came up, I openly told them they were done the way the FIRST manager had instructed us to do them. I was denied unemployment benefits because I had violated company policy’ regardless that it’s the way their representative had TRAINED us. They had also been notified several times and DID NOTHING about that manager shaving our hours worked and working us off the clock. When I reported them to the Labor Board for violation of FEDERAL WAGE AND LABOR LAWS, the labor board responded “Even tho they had SEVERAL complaints about Rent-A-Center, they didn’t have the resources to investigate my complaint before the statute of limitations ran out, BUT I had the right to retain a lawyer AT MY OWN EXPENSE to TRY and recover any lost wages!!!! THANKS A LOT!!!
Malabar said on January 6, 2011 at 2:57 pm #
I received a notice that could participate in a class action suite and the amount I would be paid was dependent on the number of people that opted in. However, the cap I could ‘win’ was set at $37. In the fine print, it listed the law firm bringing the class action was getting nearly $2M. Yes. I believe your story – I’ve seen it myself!
Jerry said on April 5, 2011 at 6:16 pm #
I had the same thing happen at a major electronic retailer. I worked 50-70 hours per week and got paid an “over time coefficient”. It worked out to a few dollars per hour. This was the pay for 15 years. The law suite cover 10 years of that time . The lawyers contract said they would not receive over $3,000,000 in fees, which they did not but they got every bit of the $3M. I got…. $100.00 YES I TELL NO LIE! For HUNDREDS of overtime hours I got $100.
Scott said on July 6, 2011 at 3:42 pm #
Peggy. It seems that you may have a case. There are attorneys that will charge a fee on a contingency basis rather than asking you to pay their hourly rate. You should look into that. I may know of an attorney that can help you.
Nick said on October 31, 2011 at 9:34 pm #
What you need to do in such a case is to opt out of the class action (by default you are automatically part of the class). Once opted out, the lawyers go to work for the other suckers and rack up a ton of time doing all the research and discovery and all the time spent in the trial itself. If they come out the other end with a judgment, that’s great news for you.
Now you can launch your own legal action (possibly with an attorney on contingency of, say, 30%) and all that work the other lawyers did is now available to you but your lawyer doesn’t have to spend a ton of time to get it. So almost invariably, the money you can get out of it is much much higher.