Area of Expertise
Class Actions
Nathan & Associates, APC and its attorneys have handled class actions lawsuits against some of the country’s largest corporations, including, but not limited to Ameriquest Corporation, Diedrich’s Coffee, Solstice Capital, Best Buy, Parking Concepts, Inc. and others. Our lawyers are very aggressive, experienced, and dedicated to serve the best interests of our clients and class members in class action lawsuits.
A class action lawsuit allows one persons or small group of individuals to be represented by a law firm and sue on behalf of hundreds, if not, thousands to hundred of thousands of different people with the same or substantially similar complaints which occur from a particular geographic region – sometimes expanding in certain situations to nationwide actions. As in most situations, there is obvious strength in numbers and the collaborative effort of individuals that have the same goal or purpose, which at times is necessary and regarded in the legal community as a powerful tool that individuals can exert to enforce the law, especially against large corporate firms that have endless amounts of money to litigate against an individual; the same effect is true when suing governmental agency. This structure typically provides the individual with the necessary power to fight for his or her rights!
The key to a class action typically depends on four factors which courts will scrutinize to determine if a class action is a superior mechanism and more judicially economic than the potential for several individual actions. The four (4) factors to be considered are as follows:
- Numerosity – There are enough people affected by the illegal practice to warrant a class action.
- Commonality – The people affected share common legal issues.
- Typicality – The claims of the people bringing the suite are typical of those in the entire class.
- Adequacy – The individual(s) representing the class and the attorneys representing the class members interests are willing and able and experienced to represent the interests of the entire class.
As experienced attorneys in this area we are able to apply for an enhancement with the Court, which provides the class representative (person representing the interests of the class) with compensation above and beyond that as a member of the actual class for his or her involvement and participation as the class representative. To date, our firm has been successful in obtaining an enhancement for class representatives.
From our experience, class actions typically arise in (1) the employment context, when employees do not receive overtime compensation, meal and rest breaks, managers are misclassified in order to avoid paying them overtime, (2) discrimination against a certain class or group as opposed to others, which can occur in the context of offering higher interest rates to a particular group of people or even in the employment context at work, (3) the charging of excessive or illegal fees, and a variety of other contexts, but the point is that the company in question uses a similar practice against a group of people effecting their legal rights in the same manner.
From our experience, it has been a recent trend for class actions to arise in the employment arena, Nathan & Associates is providing you with more specific examples to assist you:
- Excessive Fees;
- Improper Calculation of Fees;
- Improper penalties;
- Misclassification as exempt from overtime;
- “Off the clock” work;
- Improper overtime calculation methods;
- Failure to compensate time (travel, logging, on-call, training);
- Minimum wage violations;
- Vacation forfeitures;
- Improper wage deductions;
- Failure to reimburse for expenses and uniforms;
- Improper classification as independent contractor;
- Waiting time penalties;
- Meal and Rest period violations;
- Tips and Gratuities; and
- Personnel files and records
If you believe you have a potential class claim then click here to fill out the online consultation form and our staff of attorneys will review your information and call you within 24 hours to immediately discuss your case.
However, please be advised that no attorney-client relationship is formed by merely filling out the online form, although any information retrieved by this firm will be deemed confidential and not disseminated for any reason at anytime without your prior written consent. Please fill in as much information as possible, although several items are optional, it is strictly necessary that you fill out information pertaining to your name, telephone numbers, email address, and general information about your case. We thank you in advance for strictly adhering to this request as it is helpful to assist our firm in processing the case in order to call you within prescribed 24 hour period.
