As litigation combining COVID-19 prevention procedures with wage claims continues to mount, new polling shows most workers would prefer to receive help from elected officials rather than trial lawyers.
“The Governor and Legislature should be doing all they can to protect the businesses, especially those that took the challenge and stayed open during the pandemic, from wage and hour lawsuits,” Maryann Maloney, regional director of California Citizens Against Lawsuit Abuse (CALA), told the Northern California Record by email. “There should be a right to cure, especially now. There have been legislative attempts in the past to grant employers the opportunity to fix the problem by going back and paying the employee for time lost. Unfortunately, the attempts fell on deaf ears.”
A survey released Nov. 17 by the American Tort Reform Association (ATRA) shows definitive support – 63% of respondents – favoring government action over litigation to address issues arising amid the pandemic.
“Litigation has dire impact on the business and the local community,” Maloney said. “It is a domino effect. When a business is sued and has to pay out huge sums of money for a settlement, the first thing they do to come up with a lot of money is to start cutting jobs, cutting hours and cutting back on expansion. This has a direct economic impact on the lives of the business owner, employees and the community.”
The amount of time it takes to defend a lawsuit is another drain on a business even when the claim is ultimately dismissed.
“Once a complaint has been filed, an attorney can go in and start scouring an employers’ payroll records looking for technical violations,” Maloney said. “There are more than 800 pages of labor laws pertaining to just this subject. An example could be the pay check stub fails to correctly show the actual hours worked because of the time not recorded where the employee was standing in line for screening or to have their temperature checked. What makes this onerous on business is that penalty can be excessive and it is used to force settlements.”
Meanwhile, employers need to be attentive to the many workplace safety protocols and how those factor in daily operations.
“During this challenging time for employers, it would be important for them to keep up to date on CDC guidelines, OSHA regulations, County Health Department mandates and best employment practices to be sure they are complying with all city, county, state and federal regulations, especially those that pertain to wage and hour violations,” Maloney said. “Employers should actively review that all compliance measures are being implemented while employees are ‘on the clock.’”
Proper application is key as the as the virus continues to evolve.
“Employers must take it upon themselves to find out what it takes to be in compliance,” Maloney said. “It is very difficult for small businesses to operate in California. They must learn how to best protect themselves from unwarranted litigation.”