Corporate Arbitration Strategy Backfires: Six Million-Dollar Settlement for 500+ Workers

Corporate Arbitration Strategy Backfires: Six Million-Dollar Settlement for 500+ Workers

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Corporate Arbitration Strategy Backfires: Six Million-Dollar Settlement for 500+ Workers

April 14, 2020, Oakland, CA – In 2019, real estate appraisal giant CoreLogic thought it had won a major victory, compelling over 250 workers who had joined a federal overtime collective action under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) into individual arbitration. Not so fast. On April 13, 2020,  Plaintiffs filed an unopposed motion for approval of a $6 million settlement on behalf of 524 workers in the matter of Mitchell v. CoreLogic, Inc. et al., Case No. 8:17-cv-02274-DOC-DFM (C.D.Cal.), after the arbitration motion victory turned out to be the beginning of Defendant’s problems, rather than an end to them.

In January 2020, the United States District Court Judge David O. Carter ordered Defendant CoreLogic to pay $86,355.62 in sanctions to Plaintiffs’ Counsel Bryan Schwartz Law, P.C. and Nichols Kaster, LLP for “willfully and unreasonably disobey[ing]” the Court’s orders compelling arbitration. After CoreLogic won its arbitration motion, it refused to pay for 110 of the 160 individual arbitrations Plaintiffs initiated, resulting in the sanctions.

In December 2019, Judge Carter issued a tentative order granting class certification for those who had not agreed to arbitration. Defendant, facing a hefty sanctions bill, hundreds of thousands of dollars in imminent arbitration costs, a certified FLSA collective action, and a likely-to-be-certified California class action, opted to settle the whole case.

The settlement will pay an average of over $7,000 each, net, to the CoreLogic appraisers, and includes provisions requiring CoreLogic to change its pay practices.

“We are very glad to be able to put meaningful cash into our clients’ hands now – when workers need it more than ever, with what is going on with coronavirus and this economy,” said Bryan J. Schwartz, co-lead counsel for Plaintiffs. “This case shows what can happen when companies try to force class cases into individual arbitrations – employers should think twice!” said Matthew C. Helland, of Nichols Kaster, PLLP, Plaintiffs’ co-lead counsel with Mr. Schwartz.

For additional information about the case please call Bryan Schwartz Law, P.C. at (888) 891-8489 or Nichols Kaster, LLP at (877) 448-0492.