CLASS ACTIONS

Altshuler Berzon LLP has a successful history of representing workers, consumers, and the general public in a range of class action and collective action cases. Over the past several years, we have obtained substantial monetary awards and significant injunctive relief in such cases, often working with co-counsel throughout the country.

If you and a group of co-workers have been deprived of wages or discriminated against, and you would like to discuss the matter with an attorney, please contact us.

Some of the cases we have litigated include:

Employment discrimination

• Satchell v. FedEx, a race discrimination class action on behalf of African American and Latino employees of FedEx’s Western Region, which settled for $55 million, plus comprehensive injunctive relief regarding promotion and compensation policies and practices.
• Amochev v. Smith Barney, a gender discrimination action on behalf of female financial advisors, which settled for $33 million, plus extensive injunctive relief.
• Jaffe v. Morgan Stanley, a race discrimination action on behalf of African American and Latino financial advisors, which settled for $16 million, plus comprehensive injunctive relief regarding the distribution of accounts of departing brokers, support to Financial Advisors, manager compensation, and outreach activities.
• Holloway v. Best Buy Co., Inc., a race and gender discrimination class action that resulted in a consent decree providing for changes in Best Buy's personnel policies and procedures which will enhance the equal employment opportunities for the thousands of women, African Americans, and Latinos employed by Best Buy nationwide.

Wage and hour

• Rosenburg v. IBM, an action on behalf of IBM technical support workers who were misclassified as exempt from overtime, which settled for $65 million.
• Does I et al. v. The Gap, an action on behalf of 30,000 Chinese, Thai, and Filipino workers against Saipan garment factories and retailers alleging violations of RICO, the Alien Tort Claims Act, the FLSA, and federal common law, which settled for $20 million plus injunctive relief that included an industry-wide Code of Conduct and a four-year independent workplace monitoring program
• Amaral v. Cintas Corp., an action on behalf of 200 laundry plant workers whose employer failed to pay wages and benefits at the levels guaranteed by the City of Hayward’s Living Wage Ordinance, which resulted in a court-ordered judgment, affirmed on appeal, of full backpay, statutory interest, PAGA penalties, and attorneys’ fees and costs.
• Aguiar v. Cintas Corp., an action on behalf of more than 500 laundry plant workers for violations of the City of Los Angeles Living Wage Ordinance, which settled for $6.5 million, believed to the largest recovery ever for workers under a living wage ordinance.
• Vega v. Contract Cleaning Maintenance, Inc., two class action settlements on behalf of low-wage janitors and maintenance workers who were misclassified as independent contactors, which resulted in the employer’s payment of double overtime, reimbursement of all allegedly unlawful paycheck deductions, and statutory interest.
• Danieli v. IBM, an action on behalf of technical support workers of IBM nationwide who had been improperly classified as exempt from overtime, which settled for $7.5 million.
• Martin v. NUMMI, an action on behalf of auto workers who were not paid for time putting on and taking off protective gear, which settled for $4.65 million.
• Frazier v. Citicorp Investment Services, a class action settlement for full backpay on behalf of securities brokers who alleged that their employer violated California and New York law by enforcing a corporate fine-based disciplinary policy.
• In re The Pep Boys Overtime Litigation, an action for employees denied meal and rest breaks, which settled for $7 million.
• Gerlach v. Wells Fargo, an overtime pay class action lawsuit, which settled for $12.8 million.
• Hines v. KFC, an action on behalf of employees who were denied meal and rest breaks and required to work off the clock, which settled for $3.55 million.

Consumer

• Kashmiri v. Regents, an action on behalf of tens of thousands of undergraduate, graduate, and professional students at the University of California, resulted in a court ordering refunds of improper fee increases in the amount of more than $42 million and enjoining an additional $18 million in fee overcharges.
• Luquetta v. Regents, an action on behalf of almost 3,000 professional students at the University of California, resulted in a court ordering refunds of improper fee increases in the amount of more than $48 million.
• In re Consumer Privacy Cases, a series of consumer privacy class actions against several financial institutions and credit card companies that had disseminated their customers’ personal account information to third party telemarketers without the customers’ knowledge or authorization, which settled for injunctive relief and multimillion dollar cy pres payments to privacy and consumer organizations for court-approved privacy related research and education projects.
• Hamilton v. Great Expectations, a statewide class action against a video dating service that had electronically eavesdropped on confidential membership interviews, which settled for $8.5 million.
• Nobles v. MBNA, a California class action against a bank that offered lines of credit to its customers without disclosing the associated costs and credit impacts, in which the court has granted preliminary approval to a multi-million dollar settlement that exceeds the total amount of restitutionary recovery sought by the class.

We are currently litigating more than a dozen class action cases, including Brooks v. U.S. Bank (failure to provide suitable seating for in-store bank tellers); Tokoshima v. Pep Boys (failure to pay mechanics and service technicians minimum wage or reimburse them for tool expenditures); Keller v. California State University (improper increases in University student fees); Bell v. Farmers (misclassification of tech support workers); Narayan v. EGL (misclassification of drivers as independent contractors rather than employees); Villarreal v. R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. (age discrimination collective action involving hiring into one Territory Sales Manager position); Cancilla v. Ecolab, Inc. (misclassification case on behalf of Service Specialist Trainees in California and Service Specialists nationwide); Behain v. Pizza Hut (meal and rest break claims); Dominguez v. Schwarzenegger (reductions in wages for providers of Medi-Cal in-home support services); V.L. v. Wagner (cuts in eligibility for Medi-Cal in-home support services); M.R. v. Dreyfus (home care service reductions under Washington state's Medicaid program); and Pryor v. Overseas Administrative Services, Inc. (JAMS class arbitration and related federal court litigation challenging KBR/Haliburton's practice of not paying required contract wages to truck drivers in Iraq).