Labor & Employment
Dealing with issues surrounding labor and employment requires keeping up to date on a mind-boggling array of constantly shifting regulations and court decisions. Squire Sanders labor and employment lawyers have been at the forefront of today’s most critical employment and labor relations issues and pride themselves on their knowledge and experience in such areas as noncompete agreements and trade secrets, wage and hour litigation, employment discrimination, the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA), executive litigation and M&A / transactional labor issues.
In addition to being experienced trial lawyers, we counsel clients in all aspects of employment including employment contracts and compensation, investigations and internal compliance audits. We represent a diverse range of employers from Fortune 500 companies to startups, from public entities to high-technology research and development companies, and from heavy manufacturers to service companies and financial institutions. This broad client base, along with our diverse, experienced group of lawyers, gives our labor and employment practice breadth and depth in literally all aspects of labor and employment law.
Practice Expertise
Representative Experience
- Obtaining a motion for judgment on the pleadings in the US District Court for the Southern District of Georgia on behalf of a chemicals manufacturer accused of race and age discrimination. The district court found the plaintiff had failed to establish an employer-employee relationship with our client and had also failed to establish that either our client or its supervisor had any role in his employment termination. The plaintiff was employed by an independent contractor providing maintenance services to our client at its Georgia facility, and the contract between our client and the independent contractor provided that the contractor was solely responsible for employee hiring and termination.
- Serving as lead negotiator and legal adviser to the multinational members of an industry association of oil and gas sector employers in the negotiation of a collective bargaining agreement with a national union that affiliates more than 30,000 oil and gas sector employees in Venezuela. The CBA covers all gas industry workers in Venezuela.
- Obtaining a 7-1 defense verdict for our client facing claims from a former employee and his wife of wrongful discharge, promissory estoppel, fraud, defamation, intentional infliction of emotional distress and loss of consortium. On the first day of trial, the plaintiffs dismissed the wrongful discharge, promissory estoppel and fraud claims. After the plaintiffs rested, the court granted our motion for directed verdict on the defamation claims but allowed the intentional infliction of emotional distress claim to proceed under the Russ v. TRW theory of "totality of the circumstances surrounding the termination."
- Winning a unanimous jury verdict for the defense in a workers' compensation claim for death benefits. The allegations included claims that long work hours and job-related stress caused cardiac arrhythmia. The jury agreed with our arguments that there was no evidence substantiating that the arrhythmia was caused by the individual's employment.
- Defending a national trucking firm that faced a 23-count class action complaint involving 5,000 former employees seeking more than US$200 million in damages for claimed ERISA violations. Plaintiffs asserted statutory claims in connection with the spinoff of a wholly owned, unionized subsidiary of our client. Our lawyers led the defense team, formulated a case strategy, conducted necessary discovery and prepared and presented briefs and arguments in response to the plaintiffs' various claims. Squire Sanders lawyers won summary judgment on all of the plaintiffs' claims at the trial court level, and the decision was affirmed on appeal in its entirety.
- Defending a closet company against a California statewide class action on behalf of its designers. The designers sought allegedly unpaid commissions and bonuses and reimbursements for mileage and other business-related expenses. The court granted our demurrer to three of the eight causes of action, and four of the five defendants were dismissed. The matter ultimately settled on favorable terms.
- Defending a multistate fitness-facility company in a collective wage and hour action in which salaried employees alleged that their pay was subject to impermissible deductions.
- Assisting the Economic Development Board of the Kingdom of Bahrain with design and execution of labor reform measures designed to attract companies and create jobs that would require higher skill levels, bring more women into the workplace, improve productivity and reduce unemployment. Our role was to draft not only the primary legislation, but to provide a framework or blueprint for the secondary legislation and regulations necessary for implementation.
- Obtaining successful dismissal of an age discrimination claim filed by a discharged employee who reneged on a settlement arising out of a grievance. The 12(b)(1) and (6) motion to dismiss was based on the argument that a public employee cannot pursue a discrimination suit where a collective bargaining agreement contains a binding arbitration clause and the union employee failed to first exhaust contractual remedies.
- Defending against a California statewide collective action by airport shuttle drivers seeking overtime and unpaid wages under the California Labor Code and relief for unfair business practices under the California Business and Professions Code. The trial court granted our motion to dismiss all of plaintiffs’ claims except the claims for overtime pay. We then requested an immediate review by the California Court of Appeal, which reversed the trial court's ruling on the claims for overtime pay and accepted our argument that plaintiffs' claims were all subject to arbitration and strict time limits contained in a collective bargaining agreement. Following the decision by the Court of Appeal, plaintiffs' counsel withdrew from the case and all named plaintiffs stipulated to dismiss their claims.
Case Studies
When the former vice president of a flooring company's property management division abruptly left the company to work for a direct competitor despite having executed a two-year noncompete agreement, the company turned to our labor and employment prac...
Digital Dish, a leading television satellite dish service company, and two of its representatives faced claims of overtime and recordkeeping violations under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) involving more than 200 of the company's technicians. Th...
Situation:Cedar Fair, L.P., learned that CBS intended to sell its five US and Canadian Paramount amusement parks through an auction process. If Cedar Fair were able to acquire these parks, it could approximately double its holdings.Challenge:Cedar Fa...
Our client was vulnerable to more than US$25 million in damages when two of its former employees, purporting to represent the interests of a group of its retirees, filed suit in US District Court claiming various violations of the Employee Retirement...
A multinational transportation conglomerate faced a 23-count class action complaint involving 5,000 former employees who sought more than US$200 million in damages for claimed violations of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act. The complaint c...