A man has filed a class action lawsuit against a San Francisco-based real estate development firm, accusing the company of various labor law violations, including unpaid wages, denial of breaks, and failing to compensate employees for work-related expenses.
Plaintiff Christopher Torno Barclay filed a class action lawsuit in the San Francisco County Superior Court against Emerald Fund Inc. and several unnamed individuals for alleged violations of the California Labor Code and California Business and Professions Code, including failure to provide meal periods, failure to provide rest periods, failure to pay hourly wages and overtime, failure to pay proper sick pay, failure to pay all final wages, failure to indemnify and unfair competition.
According to the lawsuit, Barclay is a former employee of Emerald Fund. Barclay alleges that while he was an employee, Emerald had policies and practices in place that routinely made it so that employees were significantly underpaid in relation to how many hours they actually worked. These policies included rounding down employees' time when accounting for hours worked, requiring employees to work off the clock without pay, and requiring employees to work during unpaid meal periods. Barclay alleges that this uncompensated time caused employees to essentially work enough hours to qualify for overtime pay, a benefit they were systemically denied by the defendants.
The lawsuit adds that the defendants denied employees the opportunity to take meal breaks and rest breaks in violation of California law, which requires that employees be provided meal periods of at least 30 minutes for each five-hour work shift and a rest period of at least 10 minutes for each four-hour work period.
The lawsuit goes on to add that Emerald failed to compensate employees for work-related expenses by requiring employees to shoulder the costs of purchasing, maintaining and cleaning their work uniforms, as well as requiring employees to use their own mobile devices for work.
Finally, the lawsuit claims that Emerald failed to pay employees proper sick time pay in violation of California law, which requires that employees earn at least one hour of sick pay for every 30 hours of work or at least three days of sick time for every 12-month period of employment.
Barclay is seeking money damages for himself and everyone in his class action lawsuit, plus interest, court costs, attorney fees, and any other relief the court deems proper. He is represented in this case by the attorneys of D. Law Inc., of Glendale.
Superior Court of California of the County of San Francisco case number CGC-23-609362