Posted on March 14th, 2019
Transcription Below
Hello again, fellow entrepreneurs, it’s John Fagerholm, and today I want to talk about what happens when you get notice of a labor board claim that was filed against your business or you personally.
So, the first thing that happens is you get the notice, and then they say you could answer this.
People make the mistake of answering. That sounds like a funny thing to say, but when I first became a lawyer, I would answer everything.
Then I figured out shortly into it that that answer gets taken and gets shown to the other side.
Then the other side can make their adjustments. Basically, they have my entire case before I ever go in there and even discuss what happened. Don’t do that anymore.
The next thing that happens is you get a notice of claim and conference, and that’s just a fancy way to say, “We, the Labor Board, are going to try to force you to pay them something so that this doesn’t go to a hearing.” Which is basically a trial.
So you go into the notice of claim and conference, and the Deputy Labor Commissioner will start by listening to the plaintiff’s story. “Okay, what happened? How many hours did you work and didn’t get paid for? How badly were you treated?” So on and so on.
Then they go and they listen to the company, the defendant’s side of the story. Then they separate you and the Deputy Labor Commissioner comes in and he explains to you why you should settle this today for some dollar amount because of all of the bad things that’s going to happen if you go to a hearing.
Then they go to the other side and they say whatever. I’ve never been on that side of it, so I’m not sure what it is. That’s typically what happens at a notice of claim and conference.
The one thing you should take away from this video, if you don’t take away anything else about the portion that has to do with the notice of claim and conference is that nothing happens at the notice of claim and conference that’s going to take money out of your pocket unless that’s what you decide. So you have to decide to settle in order for it to go away.
Now, if you don’t settle it, then sometime down the road, in Los Angeles County it’s about a year away, but I’m sure some counties that aren’t so crowd as Los Angeles is probably sooner, there’s a hearing. At that hearing, it’s like a trial, that’s where you get to present evidence.
I forgot to say, at the notice of claim and conference, you don’t get to present evidence either. So, there at the hearing they’re basically, if you have a good lawyer, then there’s going to be an opening, a cross-examination of the plaintiff, because the plaintiff goes first.
Then, there’s going to be a direct examination of you and your testimony, then there’s going to be closing arguments.
So, that’s typically how it goes. If it’s a big number, you should hire an attorney, if it’s a small number, it just depends.
Is it valuable for you or not? Because if you have to spend $5,000 on an attorney to avoid paying $5,000, it’s better to go in there and either try to settle it or do a hearing yourself if you think you’ve got the evidence to prove that you didn’t do anything wrong.
That’s it for today, guys, thanks again.
