PARRIS obtained a $15,000,000 recovery on a class-wide basis in this wage statement violation class action against one of the largest communication technology companies in the world.
In this case, the employer issued confusing and misleading wage statements to over 10,000 of its employees. These wage statements failed to break down the employees’ time worked between regular and overtime hours, and failed to correctly list the number of overtime hours worked by its employees.
The California Labor Code requires that an employer provide its employees with an accurate and itemized wage statement in writing that shows, among other items:
- Gross wages earned
- Total hours worked by the employee
- All deductions
- Net wages earned
- Dates of the time period for which the employee is being paid
- All applicable hourly rates
- The number of hours worked at each hourly rate by the employee
The purpose of this California Labor Code requirement is for employees to be given transparency as to how their wages are calculated in order for the employees to be able to verify if they are being paid properly in accordance with the law, and to ensure that any deduction from the wages is proper.
The employees in this case were entitled to recover damages for each pay period in which the employer issued an inaccurate wage statement that was not compliant with California law. This resulted in a class-wide settlement of $15 million to the employees in this class action.
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