Defense Lawyers concerned about litigation wave involving on-call scheduling

The Daily Journal wrote about “a new form of wage theft” that arose out of the lawsuits filed by Bridgford, Gleason & Artinian against major retailers such as Gap, Ambercrombie & Fitch, Urban Outfitters, Bath & Body Works and JCREW LLC. Nine lawsuits were recently filed in Los Angeles and Orange County Superior Courts accusing the national retailers of breaking the state’s Industrial Welfare Commission’s “reporting time pay” wage order by not paying employees for time spent reporting to work. Eight of the cases were filed by Bridgford along with McNicholas & McNicholas LLP. California is one of eight states with a reporting time pay law. The wage order reads that an employee shall be paid for “half the usual or scheduled days work” for each workday an employee must report for work, but is not put to work once they report.