Complex Legal

Goyette and Associates is one of very few law firms in California experienced in class action litigation and representing the employees or plaintiffs in these actions. Due to the large scale and complicated nature of class action litigation, potential actions for groups or ‘classes’ of both private sector and public sector employees have to be carefully evaluated to determine if the cases are viable and can succeed. The Firm’s litigation attorneys are specialists at thorough evaluations of such disputes, which may be treated as class actions.

Goyette & Associates has successfully litigated class actions for groups of both private sector employees and unionized public employees. In the private sector, the Firm has successfully undertaken traditional class actions in which the class must be certified for groups of misclassified as ‘white collar’ exempt employees to recover overtime pay owed as well as for groups of ‘blue collar’ hourly employees to recover prevailing wages and overtime pay owed. For public employees, Gary Goyette and the Firm’s litigation attorneys are well versed in the Fair Labor Standards Act (“FLSA”), the federal wage law applicable to public employees. Class Actions or ‘collective actions’ under the FLSA are unique since, unlike traditional state wage law class actions or other traditional federal law class actions, FLSA based actions require each potential class member to affirmatively join or “opt-in” to the law suit. This opt-in requirement creates a multitude of other issues and potential complications. Goyette & Associates attorneys are experienced at handling these Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) class actions, and have handled and continued to handle large Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) based class actions seeking overtime pay for large groups of public employees. These class actions currently include actions against the Los Angeles Police Department and the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department which, together with associated class grievances, cover nearly 20,000 law enforcement employees.