Anglin Law Group | Practice Areas

Overview | Overtime Law | Meal and Rest Periods

EMPLOYMENT LAW

Every employee’s working conditions are strongly regulated under California and Federal statutory law. California and Federal employment laws define employee’s rights and employer’s obligations under the law. Employers must strictly comply with a myriad of laws regulating how they may treat employees in the workplace.

WAGE AND HOUR LAW

Our firm has established a strong Wage and Hour practice which focuses on enforcing overtime payments, minimum wage payments, meal and rest breaks for employees, work-required expense reimbursement, and reimbursement to employees for product charge-backs by the employer.

Employers are required to pay employees overtime for any hours worked over eight hours per day or 40 hours per week. Only certain categories of workers are exempt, or not entitled, to overtime. These workers include professionals, executives and administrators as well as other workers such as independent contractors and outside salespersons. Even if you are titled as an exempt employee you may be entitled to overtime. Employers often tell employees that they are exempt in order to avoid paying overtime and to obtain free labor. This practice can take many different forms. If you are being told by your employer that you are not entitled to overtime you should call our office or fill out our case evaluation form in order to receive a free analysis of your individual situation.

As an example, employers often title employees as managers and pay them a salary in order to avoid overtime payments. If the employee is actually performing the same duties as a non-exempt employee and is in reality doing very little management work, they may be entitled to overtime.

All kinds of employees have been deprived of overtime by their employers including stock brokers, computer technicians, restaurant workers, retail workers, route sales persons and delivery persons, and many others.

Overtime pay can amount to a significant amount of money. Under California State law, employees can be entitled to as much as four years of prior overtime pay. If you believe you are not receiving overtime pay that you are entitled to, please contact our law firm so that we may assist you in obtaining a recovery of overtime owed to you by your employer.

Employers may also use other mechanisms to deprive employees of their rightful overtime pay including:

Using “comp time” to offset overtime hours from previous days
Not adding together hours worked in two locations or two departments
Paying a salary without compensation for overtime
Requiring employees to work off the clock
Requiring employees to attend work meetings without payment
Misclassifying employees as exempt from overtime
Telling employees that they are salaried and therefore not entitled to overtime when they should be getting paid overtime
Telling employees that they are outside salespersons and not entitled to overtime pay when their job almost exclusively consists of doing inventory, stocking shelves and driving from store to store
Telling employees that they are commissioned employees and therefore not entitled to overtime when the method of wage calculation has nothing to do with whether an employee is entitled to overtime in most circumstances

Employees are also entitled to the following under California law:

Meal and Rest Breaks
Expense Reimbursement
Time and Wait Penalties
Minimum Wage

Employers may not charge employees or deduct from their paychecks the cost of broken or damaged products unless the damage meets certain criteria. Normal product breakage cannot be charged to an employee.

Our employment law practice also involves the following areas:

Class Actions – used as a mechanism to assist employees to attain their rights on a company-wide basis
Enforcement of California’s Unfair Competition Law
Employment Agreements
Severance Agreements
Non-Disclosure Agreements
Non-Competition and Non-Solicitation Agreements
Employee Handbooks and Policy Manuals
Bonus Calculations and Proper Deductions from Pay

OVERTIME CLASS ACTIONS

Overtime cases may be prosecuted on an individual or a class basis. In fact, employers often misclassify entire categories or classes of employees as exempt from overtime. It is often more efficient and economical for an entire class to seek compensation for overtime and other wrongs from an employer rather than each employee filing a separate suit on the same issues. It is quite common for employees to seek court approval for class action status based upon the similar claims of many individuals. Some classes involve dozens of people while others involve thousands of workers with the same overtime claims.

Our firm is committed to pursuing our client’s claims against employers for their rightful overtime pay and to pursuing class certification where appropriate.

If you feel that your employer may have violated your legal rights under California or Federal law, please call us or fill out the free case evaluation form on this site. We can offer you a free confidential consultation to assess your situation. We can help you to preserve your rights and to obtain your rightful compensation.