Reflections on Employment Litigation Damages - 2013

REFLECTIONS ON EMPLOYMENT LITIGATION DAMAGES 

Economists and accountants are used by business litigators to both prove or disprove the amount of economic damages claimed in business disputes. Whether it is determining a plaintiff’s eco- nomic damages “but for” some event, or evaluating a plaintiff’s claim and preparing an alterna- tive calculation, the professionals at Lit.Econ LLP are well-qualified to provide the necessary expertise in preparing or assessing economic damages in business and employment disputes. The following are recent examples of employment cases in which Lit.Econ LLP has provided consulting, reports and deposition or trial testimony.

CLASS ACTION EMPLOYMENT CASE

Falck v.Tenet Hospitals. A California hospital group was accused of violating state employment rules and laws in its payment of overtime to certain personnel, including nurses. We designed and implemented a survey of employees at five hospitals to determine the extent to which the hospital might be liable for damages. We sampled work hour data for nurses, selected randomly from the population of employees, to estimate total potential overtime liability for all the Tenet hospitals.

CONDITIONAL PROBABILITY OF EMPLOYMENT MODEL

Lit.Econ Economists developed a statistical model that can be used to determine the likelihood and duration of future employment for a terminated or resigned employee. The results provide future probable worklife durations that are less than are typically used in employment loss of earnings and personal injury cases.

PLAINTIFF CLASS ACTION EMPLOYMENT CASE

A Lit.Econ economist testified about lost over- time pay and unpaid wages in a class action case against a retailer. We worked for plain- tiffs attorneys, Felahy Law Group, in Long Beach. The issue included determination of individual employees’ regular rates of pay and regular overtime rates of pay. Also a deter- mination of unpaid hours by examining time clock data and comparing with payroll data. Also a computation of possible labor depart- ment defined penalties against the employer. Over two hundred members of the plaintiff’s class. Case settled in 2013.

STEVENS V. SALESFORCE.COM CLASS ACTION EMPLOYMENT CASE

We worked for plaintiffs attorneys, Nassiri & Jung in San Francisco, in this class action case. The important issue included determination of individual employee’s regular rates of pay and regular overtime rates of pay. Also a determi- nation of unpaid overtime hours by examin- ing time clock data and comparing this with payroll data to determine if there were unpaid hours for any employees. Case settled in 2012.

PLAINTIFF CLASS ACTION EMPLOYMENT CASE

A group of over 500 plaintiffs alleged in a complaint against a CRM management com- pany that it had failed to pay overtime to a variety of sales people, including overtime on associated commissions. Lit.Econ consultants prepared a damage model for lost overtime wages and related economic damages for the Plaintiff Group. Our work assisted the Plain- tiffs counsel in reaching a settlement that ben- efitted all of the members of the plaintiffs class.

VALUE OF EMPLOYEE STOCK OPTIONS

Abramo v. Ingram Micro (Orange County 2007) Testified about the economic value of certain employment related stock options in a public company. The employee was termi- nated and the primary legal issue was the value of his shares of stock and options in the publicly-traded company. Work was done for Gibson Dunn & Crutcher on behalf of the defendant.