Steve Kaplan has extensive experience pursuing claims for unpaid wages, overtime commissions and related wrongs – on behalf of both individual employees and groups of employees through the use of class action litigation.

Steve Kaplan was an early innovator in the area of employment class action litigation. He brought the first federal court class action under the COBRA law, which guarantees employees the right to purchase health insurance after a loss of employment, obtaining an injunction requiring an employer to offer health insurance to scores of employees who lost their jobs during a plant closing.

Steve also successfully settled one of the first class actions under the federal WARN statute, which requires employers to give 60 days’ advance notice of a mass layoff or plant closing, and helped initiate a series of class actions on behalf of striking construction workers throughout Southern California who had been denied overtime pay.

Recently, Steve obtained a favorable decision from the Ninth Circuit Federal Court of Appeals, which ruled that the settlement of the 2003-2004 Southern California food industry strike did not preempt certain claims under state law.

Steve continues to litigate wage and hour class actions, usually in affiliation with other employment law firms.

Key Cases

• Seven figure settlement of executive employee bonus claim.

• Successful opposition to proposed class action settlement of foreign levy claims in entertainment industry