The Honorable Manuel L. Real of the United States District Court for the Central District of California conditionally certified a collective action brought by a former Emergency Services Restoration Technician, alleging that his former employers have a common practice of misclassifying their Technicians and Helpers as independent contractors, in Vigers v. Emergency Services Restoration, Inc., et al., No. 2:17-cv-08482-R-RAO.
Plaintiff asserts that the Technicians and Helpers should instead be classified as ESR employees and receive minimum and overtime wages as required under the federal law. Plaintiff claims that ESR exerts overwhelming control over the manner in which their Technicians and Helpers do their work. Indeed, ESR requires all their Technicians and Helpers to follow a detailed script when performing work, drive ESR trucks, wear ESR uniform, distribute ESR business cards and advertising materials, and be on call to work for ESR 24 hours per day, 6 days per week. Most critically, ESR requires all Technicians and Helpers to enter into a strict non-compete agreement, forbidding them from performing any similar work for other companies.
Judge Real found that Plaintiff has sufficiently alleged that he is similarly situated to all other Technicians and Helpers because they were all victims of the same uniform policy and scheme. Following Judge Real’s ruling, Faruqi & Faruqi will send the Court-authorized notice of the lawsuit to all Technicians and Helpers who have worked for ESR in California or Texas at any time since November 21, 2014, advising them of their right to opt-in to the lawsuit.
Faruqi & Faruqi’s Innessa Melamed Huot is lead attorney on this matter and can be reached at (877) 476-7797 or (212) 983-9330 ext. 1319.