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
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- Representing the Parma City School District before the United States Supreme Court as to whether the parents of a student with a disability must have legal counsel to prosecute the claims of their child. The Sixth Circuit held that the parents had no substantive rights of their own under the statute and could not represent their child pro se. Working with legal counsel, the parents sought and received a writ of certiorari from the US Supreme Court. After oral argument, the Supreme Court held that nonlawyer parents may proceed pro se in representing the interests of their child in a federal court action under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act.
- 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.
- Securing summary judgment on all race and retaliation claims brought by a former employee against a major US-based foods manufacturer. This very complicated and visible case was featured in the local print and television media and on a radio show syndicated nationally in the United States and was the subject of a dedicated website. The plaintiff alleged that he had been fired by our client because of his race and in retaliation for complaining about discrimination in the company. He also sued four female employees for defamation because they alleged he had engaged in sexual harassment. Further complicating the matter, another supervisor, who was fired at the same time as the plaintiff, sued our client for alleged race discrimination, contending that he was fired to make it look as if the company didn't fire the first employee because of his race.
- Managing and coordinating the defense of complicated wage and hour class actions pending across the United States and in multidistrict litigation against a number of satellite and cable television provider clients. We obtained several landmark federal court decisions applying overtime exemptions to entire classes of technicians based on the federal Motor Carrier Act and Retail Service Commission exemptions.
- Successfully defending a leading maker of engineered bearings and related products in a collective ERISA action brought by 58 of our client's former employees in Connecticut state court. The former employees were seeking severance benefits following the client's divestiture of a manufacturing facility. The plaintiffs alleged a host of common law claims, as well as a statutory claim under a Connecticut law that allowed treble damages for failure to pay benefits. Approximately US$5 million was at stake before trebling, as well as compensatory damages and legal fees. The judge granted our motion to dismiss all claims based on preemption under ERISA.
- 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.
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...