Source: https://www.mayerbrown.com/en/people/z/zaimes-john
Timestamp: 2019-04-24 15:00:37+00:00

Document:
John has extensive litigation and counseling experience with all manner of employment-related issues, including wrongful termination, wage and hour, harassment and discrimination claims, as well as OSHA matters and reductions in force. He also frequently handles corporate internal investigations, matters involving covenants not to compete, employee solicitation and the protection of trade secrets/confidential information.
John regularly defends companies in class action suits, including those claiming violations of California’s unique wage and hour laws, as well as the federal Fair Labor Standards Act. He also defends class actions under the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) and its state analogs, along with the Telephone Consumer Protection Act. John and his team regularly employ aggressive, innovative strategies to bring class actions to an early resolution. His wage and hour litigation experience includes successfully trying to judgment a major suit with statewide implications against the California State Labor Commissioner.
Among the clients he represents are manufacturing concerns, credit and related reporting agencies, financial institutions, retailers, airlines, life sciences companies, consulting firms, hospitality industry and food service clients and sales organizations.
John has earned an AV Preeminent rating from Martindale-Hubbell, meeting the highest criteria for legal ability and professional ethical standards. He has also been selected by his peers as one of Southern California’s “Super Lawyers” multiple times from 2005-2019.
Sultan v. Medtronic, Inc. and Mitchell v. Medtronic, Inc.: Class action alleging failure to pay overtime based on improper calculation of Regular Rate of Pay and also alleging violation of California’s meal period statute. We first succeeded in eliminating the overtime claim in Sultan through a motion to dismiss and later defeated a motion for class certification of the remaining meal period claims. The case also effectively utilized a strategy of settling with individual putative class members before class certification, as authorized by California case law. Class certification in Sultan was later denied and affirmed on appeal to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. Mitchell was also appealed to the Ninth Circuit and affirmed in favor of Medtronic.
Steeger v. PetSmart, Inc.: FLSA nationwide collective action and Rule 23 class action alleging violations of wage and hour laws in five states. We employed an aggressive, innovate strategy to resolve 85% of the putative class claims early on, following which the case was settled for a low figure.
Laticrete International v. Mapei, Inc., et. al.: This trade secret case involved two employees who left our client’s employ to work for a direct competitor, taking with them significant amounts of Laticrete’s trade secret information. We promptly obtained a Temporary Restraining Order to prevent the use of that trade secret information and to require its return to our client, and we later convinced the court to issue a Preliminary Injunction against all defendants.
Harris v. Vector Marketing Corporation: Class action alleging violations of the federal Fair Labor Standards Act and the California Labor Code premised on claimed misclassification of over 50,000 independent contractors. We defeated several attempts to expand the geographic and substantive scope of the case, and the case was pared down through a motion for summary adjudication and a motion for judgment on the pleadings. The case was then resolved via settlement.
Perry, et al. v. The Vitamin Shoppe: Class action claiming misclassification of store managers and failure to provide meal and rest periods. This was one of three similar class actions filed by three separate attorneys in three separate California state courts. We were able to bring one of the cases, Perry, to early mediation, thereby foreclosing any recovery in the other two related cases. The attorneys in the two remaining cases embarked on a campaign to try to undo the settlement of the Perry case. After almost two years of fending off these attempts, final approval of the settlement was granted in December 2007. That judgment, as well as a related ruling by the lower court concerning misconduct by one of those counsel, was affirmed by the state court of appeal in a published opinion (Hernandez v. Vitamin Shoppe Industries, 174 Cal. App. 4th 1441 (2009)).
Espinosa v. Bodycote Thermal Processing, Inc. and Perea v. Bodycote Thermal Processing, Inc.: We again employed an aggressive, innovative strategy to resolve roughly 90% of the potential claims early on through settlement. Plaintiffs and their counsel refused to acknowledge the validity of those settlements, but we convinced the Court to issue an order approving the settlements as valid. We also defeated a motion to have the Private Attorney General Act (PAGA) claims tried to a jury and a motion by plaintiffs to recover “catalyst” attorneys’ fees. The plaintiffs agreed to settlement the remaining 10% of their potential claims on the eve of a motion for significant sanctions.
Diaz v. First Advantage Corporation: This class action alleged violations of the California Investigative Consumer Reporting Agencies Act (a state law analogy FCRA) for failure to provide accurate background checks. We prevailed on a motion to dismiss the key class action allegations, which led to resolution of the remaining individual claims through settlement on terms very favorable for the client.
Solar Turbines v. Division of Labor Standards and Enforcement: Declaratory relief suit against the California State Labor Commissioner over interpretation of the Alternative Workweek provisions of California’s wage and hour laws. Following a bench trial, we prevailed on all counts, validating our client’s interpretation in a case with statewide implications.

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