A former employee of the ATA Airlines filed a class-action lawsuit for back pay when the carrier filed bankruptcy and ceased operations
The said employee was fired last April 3, 2008.
The class action was filed in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court by former ATA employee Kevin Batman. He claims that ATA violated federal law by terminating more than 1,000 workers without giving a 60-day written notice.
ATA employed approximately 2,300 workers including 560 in Indianapolis who seek wages, commissions, salary, bonuses, health insurance and other benefits.
Kevin Batman is represented by James Kowalik and Jeffrey Hokanson of the Indianapolis law firm of Hostetler & Kowalik P.C..
A class action lawsuit was filed against those who are responsible for the oil spill that leaked 58,000 gallons of bunker fuel into the San Francisco Bay last November 7, 2007.
The lawsuit was filed on behalf of all the fishermen who have suffered losses due to the spill.
Steve Fitz is a Pillar Point Harbor fisherman who is part of the lawsuit filed last Tuesday against Hanjin Shipping Co. and other principals responsible for the oil spill. The suit was filed by the Burlingame firm, Cotchett, Pitre and McCarthy.
The lawsuit calls the spill a public nuisance and the result of negligence. It seeks unspecified damages to all the fishermen affected. It also seeks environmental monitoring so that none of this will happen again in the future.
A class-action lawsuit against Wal-Mart was finally certified by the New Jersey Supreme Court. The lawsuit is filed by Wal-Mart employees who claim that the nation’s largest retailer denied them meal and rest breaks, and forced them to work off-the-clock.
Judith L. Spanier, plaintiff attorney, said the class would contain about 8,000 current and former employees of Wal-Mart.
It can be remembered that Wal-Mart workers in Pennsylvania won a $78.5 million judgment last year for a similar case. The California case also won local workers a $172 million verdict for similar reasons. Wal-Mart though is still on the process of appealing both cases.
Johnson & Johnson allegedly discriminated against black and Hispanic managers and other salaried employees.
Earlier this month, a lawsuit seeking class action status has been filed in the United States District Court with the plaintiffs claiming pay discrimination against Hispanic employees, and both pay and promotion bias against blacks.
For one, the plaintiffs claimed in court papers that the 'discriminated’ workers' starting salaries were 3.75 percent lower than those of white non-Hispanics of comparable experience and education. Minority managers made between 5.2 percent and 8.39 percent less pay than comparable whites from 1997 to 2003, it added.
In January 2006, says one of the eight plaintiffs in the class suit filed against IBM:
"I think it is going to be a very large case in terms of the number of people, in terms of the number of hours, and eventually a very large settlement of dollars."
And it turned out just that way. On November 22, IBM said it agreed to pay $65 million to settle a class-action lawsuit alleging it unlawfully withheld overtime pay from some employees.
IBM has set aside a provision for the settlement in the third quarter of this year. However, the settlement has no attachment of admittance for wrongdoing or liability.
In May 2005, two separate class actions: one concerning hourly employees – mostly food prep workers, cleaning staff and counter workers and the other concerning restaurant managers, representing 6,400 current and former employees were filed against Boston Market restaurants for allegedly violating California wage and hour laws.
The first suit claimed that 6,315 hourly workers often worked through meal and rest periods, did off-the-clock work and were not paid overtime. The second class complained that 122 managers were incorrectly classified as exempt from overtime pay.
On October 11 this year, U.S. District Court Judge Barry T. Moskowitz in San Diego approved a ruling for a class action settlement with Boston Market paying a total of $3.75 million, with individual general managers receiving up to $6,680 in back pay. In addition, the settlement stipulated that managers' positions would be reclassified to nonexempt status on Dec. 31, making them eligible for overtime. Some hourly workers will receive as much as $2,800.