Employment Litigation Prevention & Defense: Constangy, Brooks, Smith & Prophete, LLP

Overview

Employment litigation is different from other types of commercial disputes. An employment lawsuit can disrupt your work environment and damage your reputation with your employees, your customers and the public. It’s also one of the few types of litigation in which the motives of your leaders and managers – and often your company’s overall culture – are at issue.

The last two decades have seen a significant rise in the number of class, collective and multi-plaintiff actions filed against employers. Plaintiffs’ attorneys and advocacy groups have demonstrated increased interest and creativity in pursuing these types of actions in employment cases and have brought to the process a vigor and resourcefulness that makes defending them increasingly expensive for employers.

Our litigation team can defend you vigorously—whether in court or through administrative proceedings—when doing so aligns with your business objectives. But as valued business partners, we recognize that an early resolution is often more desirable and we have a proven track record of evaluating and using alternative methods of dispute resolution to achieve those favored results. Equally as important, we can help you find solutions to issues in your workplace that may keep you out of court altogether. In addition to providing advice and counsel on difficult employment decisions to evaluate and minimize risk, we offer a suite of fixed-fee training programs for managers and employees, designed to help ensure compliance and prevent issues before they arise.

What Sets Us Apart

What we don’t do is offer a pre-packaged solution. We view you as a partner, not just our client – we get to know your organization and tailor our approaches to align with your business needs, your company culture, and the particulars of your case.

Constangy’s litigation practice has more than 100 attorneys covering a broad geographical area who regularly work across office lines to assemble teams tailored to achieving superior results. Our depth and experience allows us to efficiently handle the full range of litigation issues – from routine charges of discrimination to highly complex class action lawsuits. Our attorneys bring experience from diverse professional backgrounds, including enforcement, compliance, judicial clerkships, and private practice.

We bring to the defense of complex, multi-plaintiff lawsuits an unparalleled depth of experience and sensitivity to workplace issues gleaned from representing employers exclusively for more than 70 years. Our particular strengths in defending these types of cases includes:

Containing the impact of high-profile, multi-plaintiff litigation
Designing and implementing creative defense strategies to defeat the class aspects of the case
Incorporating key defense experts (statisticians, labor market economists, industrial psychologists, selection tool validation experts) into the defense plan
Exploring suitable means for resolving complex cases on terms acceptable to our clients through the use of mediation and other forms of alternative dispute resolution, as well as early Rule 68 offers of judgment and other creative litigation strategies
Planning and operating within a litigation budget

What We Do

We regularly defend employers in litigation and administrative matters under a wide range of federal, state, and local employment laws, including: Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (Title VII); the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA); the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA); the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA); the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA); the Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA); the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act (WARN); the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA); the Pregnancy Discrimination Act (PDA); the Equal Pay Act (EPA); and the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO), as well as their state and local law counterparts. In addition, the last five to ten years have seen an increasing number of state laws that extend employee protections beyond their federal counterpart or in areas in which there is no federal law. Constangy attorneys are well-versed on these state law nuances, as well.

Constangy offers policy development, employee relations, employee and management training, defense of administrative charges, and litigation defense, in all areas of the employment relationship, including:

Business ethics/employee conflict-of-interest issues
Equal employment opportunity
Protected class discrimination
Wrongful discharge
Workers’ compensation retaliation
Harassment based on protected class, including sexual harassment
Family and medical leave
Disability accommodations
Religious accommodations
Covenants not to compete
Unfair trade practices
Misappropriation of trade secrets
Employment agreements
All areas of pay practices, including minimum wage, overtime, and child labor compliance
Severance agreements and exit packages
Recordkeeping

Representative Matters

Constangy clients have come to expect summary judgment wins and jury verdicts for the cases its attorneys take to a decision on the merits. We have simply too many to list. But the following are a sample of some of the precedent-setting and particularly significant wins Constangy has achieved recently:

Secured a unanimous win before the U.S. Supreme Court in a landmark case involving citizenship and the interpretation of federal jurisdiction in diversity matters.
In case involving potential exposure of $20 million to our clients (and more than $300 million to the industry as a whole), obtained preliminary injunction against the United States Department of Labor and ultimately summary judgment against labor union on behalf of trade association and twenty of its members nationwide, successfully challenging a rule issued by the United States Department of Labor relating to agricultural workers. Summary judgment decision was affirmed by the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit.
Defeated class certification on many occasions, including in multi-million-dollar class actions under federal and state wage and hour laws involving allegations of off-the-clock work, falsification of time records by management, exempt misclassifications, and meal and rest breaks.
Defeated collective action status in a high-value wage and hour case, then resolved the matter with a minimal settlement involving the two named plaintiffs.
Obtained summary judgment on all issues in an Equal Pay Act and Title VII wage discrimination case that was filed as nationwide class action.
Secured summary judgment in a multi-million-dollar RICO class action, with the decision affirmed by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit.
Managed three large-scale employment matters for a national employer: (1) a wage and hour case with 29 plaintiffs; (2) another involving 50 named plaintiffs and potential notice to over 500; and (3) an age discrimination matter with 15 plaintiffs seeking nationwide notice.
Handled litigation on behalf of big-box and specialty retailers throughout the country dealing with multi-plaintiff and class litigation.
Obtained precedent-setting summary judgment in FLSA case holding that cable installers were exempt from overtime provisions.
Obtained affirmation from the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit in precedent-setting case involving the application of a mixed motive analysis in an Employee Polygraph Protection Act case, invalidating a United States Department of Labor regulation as contrary to the meaning of the statute.
Obtained precedent-setting bench trial verdict in FLSA case pertaining to the definition of “farm” as it pertains to agricultural exemption.
Obtained early dismissal of large Fair Credit Reporting Act class action.