Comments on: WARN Act

By: Pumasdad

Pumasdad — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 05:30:29 +0000

I just received a letter from the State of California re my claim that I filed for “Warn Act” pay & accrued vacation pay, it seems that my file has been closed and nothing more will be done, since there is a Class Action already filed, so even though I told the attorney responsible for the Class action suit that I did not wish to be a part of it 2 months ago, the State of California Department of Labor will not represent me or any other Hellerite, I spoke to a very nice man at the Commissioner’s office in San Francisco today who informed me that if the “Class Act” gets certified we will then have a chance to Opt out but if we do we will have to start from square one, and remember that if we join the Class Action we will lost 1/3 of any monetary award, this does not seem fair and I intend to check with some of the Heller associates that I know chose not to be a part of the Class Action, also if we lose the Class Act we would be liable for court costs, I am concerned since I understand that the attorney representing the Heller Employees has only three years experiance as an attorney versus the Heller Shareholders (who I believe are responsible for this mess) the best thing is if Heller decides to do the right thing and pay us without going to court, Stay tuned and good luck to us all,

By: Observer

Observer — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 06:59:08 +0000

More from the geniuses at Nichols Kaster:

They filed a proof of service of their class action complaint, which states that the complaint was served on the firm via personal service on “Peter VenVenutti.”

By: Class Action Lawyer

Class Action Lawyer — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 04:51:27 +0000

I’m a former Heller litigator, from the 1990s, in Heller’s Los Angeles office. (Yale Law ‘87.) Our firm, Blum Collins, LLP, has litigated numerous class actions and employment actions. We are willing to talk to anyone who wants to consider bringing a class action based on WARN violations. Feel free to call me at 213 572 0400.

Steven A. Blum

By: Observer

Observer — Sat, 25 Oct 2008 05:56:23 +0000

MTBR: On offices that were not listed, you absolutely can get a different attorney. If you do that, talk to them about the KNA suit, and see what they think could be done about it. (First to file does not always end up being the lead counsel on a class action.)

By: MTBR

MTBR — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 19:10:50 +0000

Ok question on this. On the offices that were not listed can we retain another Attorney or are we stuck with dealing with KNA?

By: Anon2

Anon2 — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 21:18:05 +0000

Sigh, this is getting worse each day. Now we have a premature sloppy class action complaint that will suck more of money out of our pockets to go to another lawyer. Why is it that the rich get richer and the poor get poorer?

By: Derner

Derner — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 20:52:09 +0000

So, you’re telling me that we had a company full of lawyers and yet we screwed up the process of filing a lawsuit?

By: Observer

Observer — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 07:11:14 +0000

The complaint does track the entity designations as in the Dissoluton Plan.

But it’s definitely a sloppy piece of work.
For example, these attorneys have filed with a typo in the citation to the jurisdiction statute they are relying on for the class action aspect: they have 29 U.S.C. 1332(d), when they mean 28 U.S.C. 1332(d). (Check the very high — i.e. recently admitted — bar numbers of the two named California attorneys on the caption)

By: NotOverlooked

NotOverlooked — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 06:58:53 +0000

Heller Ehrman LLP is a branding name – I believe all the corporate entity names were listed in the dissolution plan which was made public about two weeks ago.

By: Bad Move

Bad Move — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 05:19:50 +0000

Anon2, yes, that’s what the plaintiffs get for taking a lawyer working solely on commission. (FYI-typical plaintiff lawyers get at least 1/3rd of what the plaintiff is owed/can recover.)

Unfortunately, and don’t get me wrong, the blame still lies solely on the firm, its management, and the shareholders, the only thing a class action did at this time is guarantee that 1/3rd of the total recovery (no matter what it is) will end up with the plaintiff lawyer. Best case scenario: the class settles for 75% or 60% of what is owed. With 1/3rd of that going to Helland, employees will receive 50% 0r 40% of what they’re owed in an optimal scenario.

Further, a claim like this provides a window for an involuntary bankruptcy, where the plaintiffs can expect to lose at least an additional 10-20% and 6+ months of recovery time.

Best case scenario used to be that employees are paid what they are owed, but it would take longer. Taking longer to get paid 100% just turned into taking a lot longer to get a lot less than 100%.

Thanks, all.