Labor Law And Bankruptcy

Business owners in California have long been frustrated by the seemingly endless maze of labor and employment laws in the state. Wage and hour class actions, wrongful termination lawsuits and worker’s compensation claims have exploded and are an epidemic for California business owners. Employee claims for unpaid breaks and overtime, other wage and hour violations and PAGA demands and lawsuits can be easily filed by attorneys who specialize in pursuing these matters.

These claims are often filed by disgruntled employees with animus toward their employers, employees who have been properly terminated or laid off after a company downsizes or changes its business plan requiring a change in personnel. In addition, due to the labyrinth of employment laws created by California legislators in Sacramento, California labor law is virtually impossible to fully comply with, even by the most conscientious employers.

Overwhelmed by Labor Law Issues?

These issues are particularly problematic for small and middle market businesses who may not have the resources of large businesses with well-staffed human resources and compliance departments or the deep pockets necessary to defend such claims. Middle market business owners are faced with massive defense costs including the review and analysis of years of employment records and of course paying defense counsel.  These costs are typically many thousands of dollars.

And that’s not even the bad news. The sad truth is that if an employer defends the lawsuit and the employee wins on even one of their many claims, the employer will likely be liable for all or substantially all of the other sides attorney’s fees, which alone can be as much as several hundred thousand dollars.  Unfortunately, the likelihood of achieving a clean sweep win in such cases is extremely low.  If your business is being sued on an employment claim and have not discussed the award of the employee’s attorney’s fees with your defense counsel, you must.  Often this is not disclosed to clients defending such cases until it is far too late.

We Can Help Resolve This Issues

In the last several years, Daniel Weintraub of Weintraub & Selth, APC, has developed powerful strategies to bring about prompt and reasonable settlements of these labor and employment claims against California employers. He often works side by side with the company’s defense counsel, but is able to use the cudgel of bankruptcy relief to get opposing lawyers to understand that their absurd, multi-million dollar claims will never be realized.

The Weintraub & Selth, APC team has successfully settled many of these clams for reasonable sums the employers can afford, and in the unusual case where settlements have not been reached, successfully taken the clients through Chapter 11 bankruptcy cases resulting in plans that pay the employee claims pennies on the dollar over several years. These strategies have been used to bring sanity to the unmanageable situation faced by many middle market business owners and successfully end the litigation.

Don’t Wait Until These Labor Claims Have Cost You Dearly

If you or your company are being threatened or sued in an employment claim or class action, you should call the attorneys at Weintraub & Selth to schedule a consultation and understand your rights. The biggest mistake we see in the area of these wage and hour and class cases is failing to obtain this information and understand these strategies and alternatives early in the process.  Often client have spent thousands of dollars, sometimes hundreds of thousands of dollars before learning these alternatives.  Don’t be that person.

Call Today For Help With Labor Law Matters

At Weintraub & Selth, APC, our attorneys understand how bankruptcy can help with your labor law problems. Please call our Los Angeles office at 310-584-7702 or to speak with an experienced lawyer about your situation.