What Is A Class Action Lawsuit?
There may be a time when you end up being sued by your employees. If they are going to sue you en masse, they will set up something called a labor and employment class action lawsuit.
Class Action Lawsuit
A class action lawsuit is one in which a lawsuit is brought for a number of people who are all represented by one person. In other lawsuits, everyone who has filed a lawsuit has to appear in court for the case. However, a class action suit is in a special category of its own. A class is defined as a group into which certain people fit. For example, Joe Smith may bring a lawsuit against Blue Widgets, Inc. because they made faulty widgets. Other people who have bought faulty blue widgets may hear about the lawsuit and want to join it. Thus, they fit into that particular class, and Joe Smith would be the person who represented them in court. If there is a cash settlement, then that is split among all the people who joined the lawsuit. Even if the settlement is in the millions of dollars, dividing it up among all the people who joined the suit may mean people end up with only a few dollars.
Defense
If your employees have brought a class action lawsuit against you, the first thing you are going to need to do is to talk to a lawyer who specializes in these kinds of cases. Not only that, you are going to need to make sure that the law firm that you are looking into using also handles labor law. It doesn't matter what kind of business you are in, if it's your employees suing you, you need to have someone who understands all the ins and outs surrounding the laws. For example, if your employees are suing you because there are issues surrounding overtime pay, you don't want to deal with a lawyer who specializes in taxes because they won't understand all the rules and regulations around your industry, overtime, and other labor issues.
If you are a business owner, sometimes your employees aren't going to be very happy with you. You can't make everyone happy all the time. They may end up filing a class action suit against you. It's important to know what one of these lawsuits is and to make sure that you get the proper legal representation so that you can deal with the suit in court.