Wage and Hour Disputes
Daniel A. Menendez specializes in ensuring that employers comply with state and federal employment laws, including: employee misclassifications, independent contractor issues, unpaid wages, unpaid overtime, minimum wage violations, and meal and rest break violations.
Daniel's wage and hour experience includes:
- Successful wage and hour actions against employers for failure to pay a prevailing wage, minimum wage, overtime, and meal and rest breaks
- Successful workplace discrimination lawsuit against public employer for perceived mental disability
- Successful Class action litigation against construction contractor for violating prevailing minimum wage laws
- Protective workplace harassment restraining order against employee displaying workplace violence toward other employees
- Successful litigation and appeal of numerous unemployment insurance appeals
What is Wage and Hour Law?
Wage and hour laws generally involve employee pay and working conditions for both exempt and non-exempt employees. When you put in your hours at work, you expect full and timely compensation. If you are a non-exempt employee, you may have earned overtime wages, and you have the right to take meal and rest breaks after a number of hours on the clock. You also have a right to a safe working environment. These are just some of the rights and protections that employees have under California and federal wage and hour laws.
Wage and hour cases also often involve related claims of retaliation and failure to keep accurate time records. Mr. Menendez is an expert at identifying these claims.
How Do I know if I am Exempt from Overtime or Meal and Rest Breaks?
Employers may attempt to avoid the various rights and protections afforded by the California and federal wage and hour laws by misclassifying an employee as exempt (i.e. a managerial employee) or as an independent contractor when that employee should properly be classified as an non-exempt employee. This tactic attempts to deprive employees of a number of rights and benefits provided for non-exempt employees.
Determining exempt employee, independent contract, or a non-exempt employee status is a complicated area of the law. Courts look at several factors including statutes, case law, and wage orders to determine employee status on a case-by-case basis.