I know you wish you had a crystal ball, magic mirror or other storybook-like device that could show you if/when an employee was going to sue your company and for what. To me, the annual Workplace Class Action Litigation Report from Seyfarth Shaw comes decently close.
So, the good news is you have a map to steer you away from legal trouble. The bad news is the roads are getting curvier and more crowded.
“Since we began publishing this annual report six years ago, both the number of cases filed and the financial exposure that they pose to companies has increased exponentially,” says J. Stephen Poor, chair and managing partner at Seyfarth Shaw. “As plaintiffs’ attorneys bring increasingly sophisticated litigation against employers that combine claims under multiple statutes, the financial exposure is only going to become greater for businesses.”
The full report is more than 500 pages, so here are the most important bits.
This year’s report highlights six key trends in federal and state courts in 2009:
1. The plaintiffs’ bar increased the pace of the FLSA collective action and ERISA class action filings seeking recovery for unpaid wages and 401(k) losses. As layoffs increased, displaced workers also filed more age discrimination and Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification lawsuits. Even more litigation is expected in 2010, as businesses retool their operations.
2.
3. The Obama administration’s emphasis on regulation and enforcement also spawned more government-initiated litigation over workplace issues. It is expected that
4. The Class Action Fairness Act of 2005 continued to have significant effects on
5. Class action plaintiffs’ lawyers are a tight-knit community, which fosters quick evolution in case theories, and, in turn, impacts
6. The financial stakes in