Overview
Technology, new regulations and globalization are fundamentally changing the workplace—and presenting companies with more challenging decisions than ever regarding their workforce.
Given the complexities of today's labor climate, building a relationship with a legal team that can guide you through new developments, explain your options clearly and help you make thoughtful, informed decisions is key. Our team works closely with you, often serving as an extension of your in-house human resources and legal departments.
Experience and insight that work for employers
Manatt is focused on where your business needs to go and what it takes to get there.
Our lawyers put to work years of experience and extensive employment law skills to:
- Help you prevent problems by creating the best workplace policies and procedures, as well as designing training and auditing programs.
- Guide you through the maze of federal and state regulatory employment and labor laws.
- Provide you with aggressive and goal-oriented representation before courts, administrative agencies, arbitrators and mediators.
- Handle the collective bargaining process and advance your interests in interactions with labor unions.
Keeping litigation from getting in the way of work
Few things are less productive to businesses than litigation. Whatever the issue, our goal is to help you prevent as many of these actions as possible—and to successfully defend against the rest.
We offer high-level strategic advice and an effective defense involving a wide variety of legal issues, including complex wage-and-hour class actions, discrimination and wrongful termination cases, tort and contract actions, workplace security-related litigation, and lawsuits containing trade secret and unfair trade practice claims.
Going to bat for employers in their dealings with unions
Our goal is to diffuse tensions while creating favorable outcomes for our clients. We are especially skilled at handling collective bargaining agreements, and will advance your interests in all dealings with labor unions.
Whether you have 15 employees or 15,000, we help you analyze options, make informed decisions and take effective action to protect your company in today's complex work environment.
Who we work with
Our clients are diverse, ambitious and business-savvy. We work with some of the most successful people and firms in the U.S. and beyond.
What we do
- Terminations and reductions in force
- Employment agreements and executive compensation
- Discrimination and harassment policies
- Wage-and-hour law
- Trade secrets and unfair competition
- Investigations and audits
- Workplace security
- Leased workers and temporary employee agency issues
Experience
- Harris v. CashCall. The plaintiff in this case, who had been terminated as part of a reduction in force, brought a seven-count action against our client CashCall, Inc., and her former supervisor, alleging pregnancy discrimination, failure to accommodate, interference with her pregnancy leave rights, and wrongful termination. The case proceeded to a jury trial, but the plaintiff later waived a jury in favor of a bench trial, where a verdict was rendered in favor of our clients on all causes of action.
- Caliber Body Works v. Superior Court. In this class action overtime, meal and rest period case, we secured an appellate court ruling which resulted in the dismissal of three of the plaintiffs' causes of action, as well as a ruling that the plaintiffs were not entitled to civil penalties on three other causes of action against the company. This ruling marked the first time a California appellate court held that the payments owed to employees who have missed meal and rest periods are penalties and not wages.
- Davenport v. Beverly Hills Properties and Donald T. Sterling. We successfully defended Beverly Hills Properties and Donald Sterling in a jury trial alleging sexual harassment, retaliation, and wrongful discharge. After a nine-week trial, the jury ruled in our clients' favor on all claims.
- Figueroa v. Northridge Hospital Medical Center, et al. In this case, on behalf of Dignity Health (formerly known as Catholic Healthcare West), we blocked the plaintiff's attempt to amend her complaint and add class allegations, which would have created a state-wide class action for missed meals and rest breaks, on behalf of more than 40,000 employees. Although such amendments are liberally granted by California courts, we convinced the court that such an amendment was inappropriate in this case. Among other things, we successfully argued that the plaintiff would not be an adequate class representative because her claims were not typical of the class she purported to represent. The court's ruling was later upheld by the Court of Appeal in a published decision.
- Abrams v. CashCall. In this case, we defended CashCall against claims for disability and perceived sexual orientation discrimination and for wrongful termination. Plaintiff's wrongful termination claim stemmed from the termination of his employment after violating the company's absenteeism policy. We persuaded the Orange County Superior Court to grant summary judgment and dismiss plaintiff's case in its entirety.
- Strawder v. Pacific Sunwear of California, Inc. We defeated class certification on all grounds on behalf of Pacific Sunwear in a case that was originally filed as a putative California-wide class action for overtime, missed meal, and rest breaks, and related wage and hour remedies.
- Troy Jemerson et al. v. Del Taco, Inc. We defeated class certification of a class action alleging overtime violations in connection with misclassification allegations.
- Zhu v. Tawa Supermarket, Inc. We defeated class certification of a class action alleging violations of meal and rest breaks.
- Alcover v. W.L. Gore & Associates. We successfully obtained summary judgment of a lawsuit pursued by an ex-employee for national origin and age discrimination, fraud, and breach of contract.
- Humphrey v. Cast & Crew Entertainment Services, LLC. We successfully defended Cast & Crew Entertainment in a putative class action seeking relief for unpaid wages and waiting time penalties. The trial court sustained our demurrers to the class claims on the ground that a prior settlement barred the plaintiff's claims.
- Taylor v. Sony Pictures Entertainment, Inc. We obtained summary judgment in Los Angeles County Superior Court with regard to a former employee's claims for race discrimination, retaliation, and defamation.
- Tortora v. Kindred Healthcare, Inc. We successfully resolved a wage and hour class action brought against 20 California hospitals. The complaint initially contained broad allegations for overtime, missed meal and rest breaks, and related wage and hour claims. After targeted fact-finding, we convinced the plaintiffs voluntarily to dismiss all of their claims for overtime and missed meal and rest breaks.
- We successfully negotiated a settlement, on behalf of a high-profile producer of several popular motion pictures, with the pension & health plans that covered many of the producer's employees. The plans had claimed several million dollars in additional pension and health contributions (plus related interest, liquidated damages, attorneys' fees and audit costs) for crew members on a library of 17 pictures. We settled the plans' claim for about 17 cents on the dollar.
- We advised a food industry client in its defeat of the Teamsters Union in an election administered by the NLRB following a Petition for Recognition filed by the union. We also successfully defended against four separate unfair labor practice charges filed against the same client by the Union or individual employees; all four cases were either withdrawn or dismissed by the NLRB.
- We successfully defended a client in the construction industry in the very contentious negotiation of its initial collective bargaining agreement with the Operating Engineers Union. During the course of those negotiations, in an attempt to convince the company to accept its proposals, the union filed 21 separate unfair labor practice charges with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) against the company. We successfully defended those unfair labor practice charges so that by the time the company and union finally reached agreement, 17 of the union's charges had either been dismissed by the NLRB or withdrawn by the union.
- We achieved a very favorable result for a major toy manufacturer in a settlement with other union benefit plans. Those plans had been seeking more than $500K in additional pension and health contributions (plus related interest, liquidated damages, attorneys' fees and audit costs) on celebrities who had licensed their likenesses to be used as dolls and in games. We settled the plans' claims for less than 7 cents on the dollar.
- We advised an animation company in its defeat of the Animation Guild in an election administered by the NLRB.
Related Practices
Advertising, Marketing and Media
Class Actions
Entertainment Litigation
Financial Services Litigation and Enforcement
Health Care Litigation
Investigations, Compliance and White Collar Defense
Manatt Financial Services
Tax
Select Clients
Activision
AMC Theaters
Blue Shield of California
Del Taco
Match.com
Ticketmaster
