Employment Litigation Attorney in Tampa, Florida
Have you represented businesses in employment litigation?
Have you represented businesses in employment litigation?
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00:04
i have i
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represent a number of companies where
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anytime you have employees these days
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you’re going to have employment issues
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whether those are family and medical
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leave acts age discrimination employment
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sex discrimination religious
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discrimination race discrimination
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wage and hour claims are very common
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fair labor standards act where
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somebody’s claiming they were entitled
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over time they weren’t paid i’ve handled
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all of those kinds of cases
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some of those cases are very difficult
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for employers because
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the employee can make a claim for a very
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small amount of money
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two thousand five thousand dollars but
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since they typically get filed in
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federal court
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and the attorney’s fees could be 50 000
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and you could have to pay the
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plaintiff’s lawyer 50 000 in legal fees
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you’re looking at a case where you have
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a hundred thousand in legal fee exposure
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even if 50 if you win and if you lose 2
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000
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or twenty five hundred to have a hundred
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thousand exposure those are the times
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you sit down the client and say
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we need to make an economic decision do
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you do that do you resolve this case
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do you make it go away now or do you
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start spending money on legal fees
Tampa FL, commercial litigation attorney Stan Padgett talks about his experience representing businesses in employment litigation. He represents a number of companies and notes that anytime a business has employees, employment issues are likely to arise. These can include claims under the Family and Medical Leave Act, age discrimination, sex discrimination, religious or racial discrimination, and wage and hour disputes under the Fair Labor Standards Act, such as unpaid overtime.
He points out that some cases are particularly challenging for employers because an employee might claim a relatively small amount—say, $2,000 to $5,000—but because these cases are often filed in federal court, attorney’s fees can quickly escalate. For example, paying $50,000 in legal fees to the employee’s attorney can make the total exposure around $100,000, even if the claimed amount is minimal. In such situations, he explains, it’s critical to sit down with the client and make an economic decision: whether to resolve the case quickly or proceed with litigation and incur potentially high legal costs.
