Good morning, amazing TCA viewers! I hope you're doing fantastic and enjoying a BEAUTIFUL Spring day! I receive a LOT of mail from our readers, and we do our best to answer any questions you have or direct you to the appropriate place for answers. Just send your questions to questions@topclassactions.com.
I recently received a note from a viewer who was suing an old employer for unpaid wages. They had a solid class action but decided to go on their own in court. Sometimes this works but it's really REALLY important for you to remember to set your expectations appropriately. In this instance, they originally were due somewhere in the neighborhood of $10,000. They brought in some additional plaintiffs to bring the amount owed closer to $15,000, which puts the case in a tougher spot as it’s much easier for a defendant to pay out one person and move on.
In general, if it happened to YOU, and you know it happened to a few other people, it probably happened to a LOT of other people. In those cases, you need to reach out to a lawyer who can file a
class action on your behalf with resources to track down every other potential plaintiff, maximizing the claims for everyone.
In this example, the plaintiff was jerked along for months. The defendant doesn't appear to be playing fairly, which happens when they are going against someone representing themselves. If the plaintiff had worked with a lawyer, that lawyer would be holding the defendant's feet to the judicial flames to settle the issue or go to trial. Instead, when a defendant sees a non-lawyer setting a trial date with no plan to execute nor resources to fight Goliath — no sling, no pebble — the plaintiff is likely to get squashed.
I reached out to a good friend of mine to see if they could assist in some way, but it's doubtful. It's critical that when you go to trial, you go prepared with a competent legal team who's ready to fight for you. If you don't, you may lose the ability to sue that defendant in the future. I'll do my best to point this plaintiff in the right direction. The irony is they may have opened up a new class of workers we can help that may exclude this individual. Once you're in the courtroom and a judge has already been making rulings against you, it's really difficult to swoop in and change the outcome. Not impossible, but difficult. We'll see what happens!
Hopefully, we'll be able to help the thousands of others who weren't represented by this individual, get them an amazing legal team, and get some justice for a lot of people who were woefully underpaid. Defendants listen to the lawyers Top Class Actions work with, so we’ll keep fighting for you!
