Orin Kurtz represents employees in class actions, individual litigation, and contract negotiations.
Class Actions
Mr. Kurtz has worked on some of the largest class action settlements in history, and is currently representing over 210,000 employees in a nationwide class action for violation of ERISA (the law governing employee retirement plans such as 401(k) accounts).
Mr. Kurtz has obtained significant class action recoveries for employees including:
- $5,000,000 recovery against a multinational media company for failure to pay overtime;
- $2,000,000 aggregate recovery for nurses and nursing assistants who were denied overtime pay;
- $1,000,000 recovery for newspaper delivery drivers who were misclassified as independent contractors;
- $850,000 recovery for medical industry salespeople who were misclassified as independent contractors;
- $650,000 recovery for wait staff at the US Open tennis tournament who were denied overtime and subject to unlawful retention of gratuities.
Executive Employee Representation
Mr. Kurtz represents and counsels high-level employees in all aspects of their employment. Representative matters include:
- Counseling on and negotiating employment agreements for physicians;
- Representing a physician in severance negotiations;
- Representing an insurance salesman in litigation concerning a non-solicitation agreement;
- Representing an energy industry executive in litigation against a former employer;
- Representing a high-level salesperson in an action to recover commissions.
Mr. Kurtz also represents employees of all levels in issues including failure to pay overtime, failure to pay commissions, discrimination in violation of Title VII, the New York City Human Rights Law, and the New York State Human Rights Law, misclassification as an independent contractor, failure to provide reasonable accommodations for a disability, and general counseling regarding any legal matter that arises.