A former Prada employee, Rina Bovrisse, is urging Prada to drop a lawsuit filed against her seeking $780,000. Bovrisse recently lost a discrimination lawsuit she had filed against a Japanese subsidiary of Prada in a court in Tokyo, Japan in 2010. Prada’s countersuit alleges that Bovrisse’s discrimination lawsuit was frivolous and “damag[ed] the brand.”
According to Bovrisse, in 2009, Prada Japan’s human resources manager urged her to change her hairstyle and lose weight, told her that Prada Japan’s CEO was “ashamed of [her] ugliness,” and described her appearance as a “serious problem.” After Bovrisse reported the incident to Prada’s global COO and HR director in Milan, Prada Japan demoted several top saleswomen for being “old, fat, ugly,” and not having “the Prada look.” Shortly thereafter, Bovrisse was criticized for her own appearance and was urged to resign.
Bovrisse, along with two co-workers, filed the discrimination lawsuit in a Japanese court in December 2010. The court ruled in favor of Prada in October 2012, holding that the alleged discrimination was “acceptable for a luxury fashion label.” Bovrisse has now enlisted the help of the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women and hopes to file a new discrimination lawsuit against Prada in the U.S.
If you or someone you know has been discriminated against at work, you may be entitled to relief. Please call Khorrami, LLP for a confidential consultation.
A manufacturing company headquartered in Cleveland, OH has settled a class action lawsuit filed against it in 2011 by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (“EEOC”), alleging discrimination against women in the workplace. The lawsuit alleged that the manufacturing company, Presrite Corporation, passed over women who had applied for employment in favor of less qualified male applicants and that those women that were hired were subjected to harassment by male co-workers.
According to federal law (29 CFR § 1602.14), “Any personnel or employment record made or kept by an employer (including… application forms submitted by applicants and other records having to do with hiring…) shall be preserved by the employer for a period of one year from the date of the making of the record…” This may seem trivial, but in this case, Presrite failed to produce over 1,000 employment applications, resulting in the EEOC being unable to identify several female applicants who had been unlawfully denied employment.
In addition to placing compensatory damages of $700,000 in a fund for female applicants who were unlawfully denied positions at Presrite, the company has agreed to offer positions to over 40 such female applicants identified by the EEOC during their investigation. Presrite must also implement measures to prevent future discrimination against women, including periodic reporting of hiring decisions to the EEOC and electronic storage and retention of employment records.
If you or someone you know has been discriminated against at work, you may be entitled to relief. Please call Khorrami, LLP for a confidential consultation.
The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has reversed a Nevada federal court’s earlier ruling and held that Amazon.com warehouse workers may proceed with their labor law claims against the online retailer giant.
Warehouse employees subcontracted through Integrity Staffing Solutions to work on filing orders for Amazon.com can move forward with a class action lawsuit claiming violations of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) and Nevada labor laws. According to the claims, warehouse employees working for Amazon.com are allegedly required to go through a security checkpoint at the end of their shift to make sure that they aren’t stealing any merchandise. According to the plaintiffs, going through the checkpoint at the end of the day took up to 20 to 25 minutes. Employees were required to clock out before going through security checkpoints at the end of their shifts resulting in nearly two hours of uncompensated time per week.
A district court previously dismissed the case finding that the time spent going through security was not compensable under the FLSA, but earlier this month the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the dismissal and ruled that the workers could move forward with their FLSA claims. Under the FLSA, employees should be paid for any activity that is necessary to perform their job duties and done for the benefit of the employer. The plaintiffs “allege that the screenings are intended to prevent employee theft – a plausible allegation since the employees apparently pass through the clearances only on their way out of work, not when they enter,” the opinion says. The opinion also says that “As alleged, the security clearances are necessary to employees’ primary work as warehouse employees and done for Integrity’s benefit.”
Attorneys for the plaintiffs estimate that there are over 38,000 potential class members. In order to join the class eligible current or former Integrity employees need to opt in to the lawsuit by filing a consent to sue form or contacting the attorneys.
If your employer is not paying you or someone you know proper wages or overtime, please contact Khorrami, LLP for a confidential consultation.
A former executive at the Pacific Investment Management Company (PIMCO) has filed a lawsuit claiming that he was fired last year in retaliation for reporting financial misconduct at the firm to federal law enforcement officials. PIMCO is headquartered in Newport Beach, California, and manages nearly $2 trillion in assets, making it one of the world’s largest money management firms.
The plaintiff claims that senior executives at PIMCO engaged in insider trading and manipulated the ratings and values of certain bond holdings to the detriment of clients, amongst other misconduct. According to the plaintiff, he reported the alleged misconduct to his supervisor and compliance officials. The plaintiff claims that in response to his complaints management lowered his pay and subjected him to “verbal abuse.”
The plaintiff alleges that he was fired three weeks after informing PIMCO that he reported his complaints of misconduct to the federal government. According to the complaint, the plaintiff was told by PIMCO that he was fired for “performance reasons,” but the plaintiff, who had been with the company for more than a decade, maintains that he was terminated because of his cooperation in an investigation into the firm’s activities.
Three days after filing the lawsuit, the plaintiff dismissed the case. It is rumored that the parties are in talks to resolve the dispute but the parties have not confirmed that is the case. Reuters reports that David Spivak and Philip Aidikoff, the the lawyers representing the plaintiff, declined to comment. Reuters also reports that a PIMCO spokesman said, “As a matter of policy, we do not comment on legal matters.” The PIMCO spokesman also said, “However, PIMCO performs an appropriate review of all employee complaints or concerns.”
Whistleblower statutes protect employees from retaliation for reporting information about an employer’s violation of state and federal laws and regulations. Whistleblower statutes make it is unlawful for an employer to retaliate against an employee for reporting an employer’s potential violation of the law to a state or federal agency.
If you believe you had been demoted, retaliated against, or fired for unjustified reasons, contact Khorrami, LLP for a confidential evaluation of your rights.
A class action lawsuit was recently filed in New York state court in Albany County against the Malozzi Group, owner of several New York restaurants, which is illustrative of another way some employers illegal rip off their hourly employees. According to the complaint, as alleged by a former Mallozzi’s server, Malozzi’s restaurants were stealing employees’ tips by charging a mandatory 20 percent service charge on the total cost of a customer’s bill and then not distributing the service charge to the servers. Instead, Malozzi’s restaurants would pay employees a flat hourly rate and the service charge was kept by the restaurant.
If the allegations are true, the restaurants’ practice may violate New York law which requires that “a charge purported to be a gratuity must be distributed in full as gratuities to the service employees of food service workers who provide the service.” Furthermore, New York law states “[t]here shall be a rebuttable presumption that any charge in addition to charges for food, beverage….including, but not limited to any charge for “service” or “food service” is a charge purported to be a gratuity.”
The owners of the restaurant have denied the allegations and claim the lawsuit is meritless.
If you or someone you know is being similarly taken advantage by an employer, please contact the attorney of Khorrami, LLP for a free confidential consultation regarding your potential claims.
130 former employees of Lawrence Livermore Lab are seeking restitution for the loss of their jobs and incomes after allegedly being unfairly targeted, allegedly due to age, salaries, and other issues. In May 2009, the former employees filed suit in California state court against the company after 430 lab workers were laid off the previous year.
According to the plaintiffs, the employees chosen for layoffs were picked ahead of others with less seniority, violating terms in their employment contracts. For example, one of the plaintiffs, Marian Barraza, had 38 years of experience and was let go while another employee with a little over a year with the company was allowed to stay. In October, the court ruled that the lawsuit could proceed to trial after it found sufficient evidence that the layoffs disproportionately affected workers over the age of 40.
The 130 workers combined in the suit are seeking individual damages on a number of allegations, including discrimination, retaliation, intentional infliction of emotional distress, and breach of contract.
If you feel that you have been improperly laid off due to age, please contact Khorrami LLP for a private consultation.
Demetria Peart, a former Latham & Watkins secretary, is suing the firm for pregnancy-related discrimination and wrongful termination. Peart claims she was subjected to “outrageous, misogynistic attitude, behavior, and treatment of a woman that shocks the conscience.” Her lawsuit is filed in a Washington, DC federal court. Peart is seeking $1 million in compensatory damages and $10 million in punitive for the alleged discrimination she suffered from.
Peart was a hired at the legal secretary for the large law firm in April 2007. In October 2007, Peart learned she was pregnant. When Peart suffered a tear in her placenta early on in the pregnancy, her doctor placed on her bed rest. Peart requested short-term disability leave due to her “extreme medical complications.” She was fired in late January 2008. Peart alleges the director of human resources told her that her pregnancy complications “were not his problem.” Peart later learned that the director told others in the office she was fired for taking leave due to morning sickness.
“I was on mandated bed rest,” she said in an interview. “I did everything I was supposed to do as far as getting my disability and checking in.” She also expressed, “they terminated me at my lowest point.”
Peart states in her complaint that she was a “well-regarded” employee and did not have a history of work-related problems. The firm has declined to comment.
Peart filed her claim under the Pregnancy Discrimination Act. The Pregnancy Discrimination Act amended Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. It isintended to protect pregnant women from discrimination on the basis of pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions.
If you or someone you love has been discriminated against for being pregnant, please contact Khorrami, LLP for a private consultation.
A former SoulCycle instructor filed a class action lawsuit against the indoor cycling company in federal New York court alleging that the company failed to pay its instructors for all hours worked in violation of New York and California labor laws.
According to plaintiff Nick Oram, SoulCycle only compensates its instructors for the 45-minute spin class that they teach. Instructors are not paid for any time they work in preparation for these grueling classes such as training, developing routines, compiling playlists, communicating with customers, attending meetings leading special event classes and engaging in marketing. Oram claims that SoulCycle instructors spend dozens of hours a week in preparation for their classes and are not compensated for any of this time.
The complaint continues to claim that the unlawful wage practices are consistent with SoulCycle’s mistreatment of its customers. For example, the complaint states, SoulCycle does not provide reimbursement to customers who are unable to attend to a scheduled class (unless they have cancelled by 5pm the night before) even when SoulCycle is able to re-sell the vacant bike spot. This allows SoulCycle to generate revenues from the classes that exceed the total number of bikes in a studio, to the detriment of its customers.
If you feel that you have been improperly denied compensation of wages for all hours worked, please contact Khorrami, LLP for a private consultation.
Forty-six current and former reporters who worked for the TribLocal, a division of the Chicago Tribune, have reached a settlement in a class action suit over unpaid overtime. The Chicago Tribune has agreed to pay $660,000 to reporters who worked for TribLocal between February 2009 and September 2012.
The suit was filed in Federal Court in Chicago for staff reporter Carolyn Rusin, who worked for TribLocal from July 2010 to October 2011. According to the suit, she regularly worked more than 40 hours per week, typically needing 50 to 60 hours to complete assignments. She did not receive all the overtime pay owed to her, however. For example, she was only paid five hours of overtime in 2011.
According to federal law, employers must pay employees one and a half times their hourly wage for all hours worked after 40 per week. There are exceptions for various professions and positions. Journalists may are among the types of employees that may be exempt from overtime rules, but it depends on the type of work that they do. TribLocal was designed by the Chicago Tribune to report on local community news in the surrounding Chicago area. Rusin and the other TribLocal reporters who were part of the suit generally covered local governmental meetings. Because of the focus of their work, the reporters asserted they were not exempt from the overtime rules.
California law also requires overtime payments to employees of one and one half times their hourly rate for all hours worked over 40 in a week. California also requires that employees receive one and a half times the employee’s regular rate of pay for all hours worked over eight hours in a workday. California also requires employees receive double their pay for all hours worked in excess of 12 hours in any workday. The California law, like the federal law, is subject to various exceptions.
If you or someone you know has not received overtime that they were entitled to, please contact Khorrami, LLP for a confidential consultation.
A former Arizona teacher has filed an employment discrimination lawsuit saying she was forced to quit after suffering through years of discrimination because she had an accent.
Gladis Mopecha is a Cameroonian woman and former teacher for the Gilbert Public School District in Arizona. Mopecha helped students at the school improve their language skills as an English-language learner specialist. From her hiring in 2005, through 2007, Mopecha received positive reviews for her work. Then in 2008, Mopecha says, the school’s reviews became critical. Specifically Mopecha was told to get rid of her Cameroonian accent. In an attempt to please the school, Mopecha attended expensive linguistic training classes in an attempt to hide or improve her accent, but to no avail. Mopecha’s overall review in 2009 improved, but she was still reprimanded for her accent.
Following the 2009 review Mopecha’s workload increased significantly. According to the lawsuit the increase in workload was aimed at reducing her work quality and causing her stress.
Mopecha says she eventually resigned due to the massive work load and repeated attempts to force her out of her job. Her child, who attended school in the Gilbert Public School District, was also subjected to harassment. Her lawsuit seeks damages based on racial discrimination.
Federal law protects employees from being treated unfavorably because he/she is of a certain race or because of personal characteristics associated with race. States have their own laws that also protect employees from discrimination based on their race. California’s Fair Employment and Housing Act (FEHA) allows employees who have suffered racial discrimination to file a private suit for their injuries.
If you or someone you know has been the victim of racial harassment at the hands of an employer or at the workplace, please contact Khorrami, LLP for a confidential consultation.
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