Employment Law – Law Office of Rick Morin, PC

How To Stop Wage Theft in California

Wage theft happens all of the time in California. For many reasons, wage theft is highly illegal. Employees and employers both need to be aware of all of the forms that wage theft can take. And how to stop it. Keep reading to learn more about this problem.

Wage Theft Takes Many Forms

Beyond the most obvious example — an employer simply not paying its employees — wage theft takes many forms. A small list of possible wage theft issues includes:

Not being paid the minimum wage
Failing to pay overtime
Not calculating overtime appropriately
Unauthorized deductions from paycheck
Altering time cards
Bounced / late paychecks
Failing to be reimbursed for business expenses
Not receiving final wages on time
Missed meal and rest breaks

In all of these examples, the employee is owed compensation in one form or another. And the employer did not pay that compensation. The employee was shorted money owed, and the employer is on the hook for substantial penalties.

How to Stop Wage Theft

Many forms of wage theft are inadvertent. The most obvious solution to this problem is educating both business owners and employees. Unfortunately, California labor laws are very complex and numerous. Keeping up with the laws can be a challenge for everyone involved.

Even if an employer makes an innocent mistake, they can still be liable for the unpaid wages and penalties. These problems can balloon into serious and expensive legal cases for employers.

Employers and employees should work together to find a solution to instances of innocent wage theft. However, when the parties cannot find a good solution, lawyers can get involved. And that almost always makes the problem more expensive for the employer to deal with.

Time Limits are Important

Employees need to keep in mind that most wage theft laws have a short expiration date. In other words, if an employee takes too long to file a lawsuit, they might not be able to recover anything.

Employees need to be very diligent about contacting an attorney as soon as they believe their wages are being stolen. A five star employment law attorney will advise an employee on the amount of wages owed and how best to recover that money. However, the longer the employee waits, the more difficult it will be to recover stolen wages.

February 20, 2021/by Attorney Rick Morin

Employment Law

How to Calculate California Overtime

Calculating overtime pay in California can be tricky. Unlike Federal law, overtime in California is triggered when one of two conditions are met. For purposes of this article, we are only going to discuss time-and-a-half. Under certain circumstances, an employe may be entitled to double time. Read on to learn more about how to get these calculations right!

Federal Overtime Law

Compared to California law, calculating overtime under Federal law is relatively simple. In most circumstances, overtime is triggered after an employee works more than 40 hours in a workweek. Importantly, a workweek can be any defined period of time. For instance, a workweek does not necessarily need to start on Monday.

So all you need to do to calculate Federal overtime is calculate all hours in excess of 40 hours in a workweek by 1.5x the hourly wage. For example, if an employee earns $10 an hour and works 50 hours in a workweek, Federal overtime requires paying 10 hours at $15 an hour. The total wages owed for that workweek will be $10 x 40 = $400 for regular time and $15 x 10 = $150 for overtime, for a total of $550.

California Overtime Law

Of course, things are more complicated in California. An employee is entitled to overtime pay when either of the following two conditions are met: 1) when an employee works more than 8 hours in a workday; or 2) when an employee works more than 40 hours in a workweek.

Employees and employers must keep track of both daily overtime and weekly overtime in California. The confusion often stems from scenarios where the employee earns both daily overtime and also exceeds the 40 hour limit for the week. I have seen all sorts of convoluted calculations. But the math is very simple.

Let’s use this scenario to start: An employee regularly works four days in a workweek at $20 per hour. Each daily shift is comprised of 10 hours. In this case, the employee earns 8 hours of regular time, four days a week, for a total of 32 hours of regular time. The employee also earns 2 hours of daily over time, four days a week, for a total of 8 hours of overtime. Easy! Because the employee did not work more than 40 hours in this workweek, we don’t need to worry about the 40 hour limit at all.

Here’s another scenario: An employee regularly works five days in a workweek at $20 per hour. Each daily shift is comprised of 10 hours. In this case, the employee earns 8 hours of regular time, five says a week, for a total of 40 hours of regular time. The employee also earns 2 hours of daily overtime for five days, for a total of 10 hours of daily overtime. But the employee also exceed the 40 hour rule because they worked 50 hours in total that workweek. Does the employee get overtime for those 10 hours that exceeded the 40-hour rule? No! They already received 10 hours of overtime pay under daily overtime. The employee does not get overtime on overtime.

This gives rise to the general rule: add up all of the daily overtime hours and the weekly overtime hours. The employee gets paid overtime based upon whichever number is larger. In our first example, the employee did not earn any weekly overtime, so they get paid their daily overtime hours. In our second example, the daily and weekly overtime hours are the same, so the employee gets paid the same amount under either daily or weekly.

Don’t over complicate these calculations. Follow the general rule and calculating time and a half overtime in California is very easy.

January 14, 2021/by Attorney Rick Morin

Employment Law, Litigation

Employee Home Internet and Phone Reimbursement

California labor laws are complex, voluminous, and often confusing. However, certain key parts of our labor laws are extremely clear. One such law is Labor Code section 2082. Read on to learn more about this powerful law.

Employees Can’t Pay for the Cost of Doing Business

Employers — not employees — bear the cost of doing business in the State of California. This is well-settled law. Some employers try to get around this by forcing their employees to use their own personal equipment and resources to do their job. An employer that forces their employees to pay for things like cell phone and internet is breaking the law.

This issue most often comes up in work-from-home situations. An employer will allow an employee to work remotely but will refuse to reimburse the employee’s phone and internet expenses. Most people cannot work remotely without utilizing a phone, data plan, or internet access. Our laws therefore require the employer to reimburse those expenses.

Labor Code Section 2082 Has Strong Protections for Employees

Labor Code section 2082 is extremely powerful. The law allows employees to sue their employer for reimbursement of the business use of their personal cell phone, internet, or even vehicle. This means that an employee can recover the costs associated with the business use of their personal cell phone, internet, and car.

Businesses can avoid lawsuits under Section 2082 by simply providing their employees with internet and cell phones and reimbursing employees for mileage driven at the IRS reimbursement rate. For whatever reason, not all employers follow these best practices. Violating Section 2082 can be very expensive for an employer!

All an employee needs to do to prevail in a lawsuit under Labor Code section 2082 is to show that the employer required the employee to use a personal cell phone, internet, or vehicle for work-related reasons and that the employer did not reimburse those expenses. Cochran v. Schwan’s Home Service, Inc. (App. 2 Dist. 2014) 176 Cal.Rptr.3d 407, 228 Cal.App.4th 1137, review filed, review denied.

Damages Available under Labor Code Section 2082

As discussed above, an employee may recover a reimbursement equal to the costs of the business use of their personal equipment. Additionally, the courts can award interest on those damages going back to when they were incurred.

On top of damages, Labor Code section 2082 allows an employee to recover their attorney’s fees and litigation costs against the employer. In my office, we do not charge employees attorney’s fees to sue under Section 2082 because we force the employer to pay our attorneys fees.

If you believe that your employer is unlawfully forcing you to pay for home internet, cell phone, or vehicle use, please call my office at 916-333-2222 for a confidential and free consultation.

Meet Attorney Rick Morin

My name is Rick Morin and I am a tireless advocate for individuals throughout California. Along with my associate attorney Bryce, paralegal Jordann and assistance Alex, my team and I aggressively pursue litigation matters in California Courts.

Everyone in my offices loves helping employees fight back against injustice. We fully utilize California’s strong labor laws to level the playing field. We are very proud of what we are able to achieve.

My small team and I operate out of Sacramento, California just blocks away from the United States Courthouse and the Sacramento Superior Court. But we accept cases state wide. We are always on the lookout for strong cases and clients as dedicated as we are.

I invite you to contact my office at (916) 333-2222 to discuss your labor law issue. Don’t delay any more. We are here to help.

April 16, 2019/by Attorney Rick Morin