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Updated over 3 years ago,
Are you at risk for a multi-million dollar lawsuit?
This is some serious lawsuit issues I never saw addressed in a thread.
The entire U.S. has had major changes in regards to the number of lawsuits employees filed against their employers in the past 5 years because some laws were changed about 15 years ago and it took attorneys about 20 years to realize how they could capitalize on those changes.
A high percent of these lawsuits are not covered by your insurance company. Read up on the internet about the increase in the percent of lawsuits filed by employees and a high percent of these lawsuits were related to property owners, live-in property managers and all of the handymen, gardeners and people who work for you. You will find that in the past 5 years 70% of all the businesses in the United States have had civil lawsuits filed against them by their employees.
Since 2015, my company had 21 worker comp lawsuits that were paid for by my workers comp insurance companies. That was depressing but not having to fork out about $80,00 per lawsuit for both attorneys and a small settlement was a big relief. The same attorney for three of those worker comp lawsuits filed civil lawsuits against my company and I had to pay the attorneys out of my pocket for both sides to settle the three civil lawsuits. My cost to handle the 3 lawsuits was about $180,000 and I got off cheap and easy.
We settled the first $1.2 million lawsuit for $25,000 with two telephone calls from my attorney because we had video evidence that the employee stole an $8,000 piece of equipment and that was the reason he was fired. But...don't forget that my company was 100% right and the employee was not entitled to one penny, but to settle quickly I still had to pay the Plaintiff's attorney $25,000 and I think my attorney fees was less than $5,000.
It took attorneys about 10 years to realize they can make some easy money filing civil lawsuits against employers for not paying your workers over-time even though you think you employees never worked overtime, for not giving your employees 1-hour uninterrupted breaks even if you did, for not giving them an interrupted 10-minute break every 4 hours even if you did and for not providing them with the proper weekly Wage Earning Statement, for unfair competition because you try to claim your workers are independent contractors when they are not, for trying to claim they are exempt from paying payroll taxes when that are not exempt and for all sorts of discrimination, different types of harassment and many more bogus Causes of Action.. No joke when you open an envelope and you get a lawsuit demanding $1.2 million and it happened to me 3 times.
It would be wise to start reading up about all the multi-million dollar lawsuits being file by live-in property manager and any workers who work on your property. If someone is injured working on one of your properties and you don't have worker's compensation insurance then you are subjecting yourself to paying up to $100,000 for an attorney if you settle through mediation, $300,000 for an attorney if the case goes to a jury trial, plus damages to the Plaintiffs, plus the Plaintiffs attorney fees that could be $100,000 to $300,000 and you could easily pay $500,000 to $1 million out of your pocket even if nobody can prove the Plaintiff is injured. That is how the system works. It doesn't matter whether you are wrong or right. No attorney cares and your attorney will only tell you how much you need to pay to settle to avoid a jury trial where your attorney's fees alone are about $300,000.
How do I know all about this. It is because the day before Thanksgiving last year I settled a similar case through a mediator. My attorney's fees were $75,000, the mediator for 1 day was $10,000 and I paid the two Plaintiffs a total of $65,000 and even the mediator made several statements indicating the Plaintiffs were not entitled to one penny, but that is how the system works. Everyone knows the Plaintiffs are not entitled to one penny, but the entire thing is about the Plaintiffs attorney bluffing and threatening to take the case to a jury trial.
Everyone know the Plaintiffs are bluffing, but every party also knows that if we did not settle on that day we have to pay a mediator another $10,000 and my attorney is charging me $650 per hour to go to mediation plus she has another what she calls an assistant at the mediation and I pay her only $325 per hour. So, one day for mediation costs me $10,000 plus 8 hours x $650 plus 8 x $350 = $17,800 plus another $5,000 for my attorneys to spend 8 hours each preparing for the next mediation means my cost for one more day of mediation is $23,000, out of my personal pocket. Every party knows my cost is $23,000 per say, so the Plaintiffs hold out until I realize that it is better to pay the Plaintiffs $65,000 to settle because even if we do pay another $23,000 for another day of mediation I will still have to give the Plaintiffs some money to make the case go away.
This year, I purchased EPLI insurance that stands for Employment Practices Liability Insurance. I have 20 employees and the insurance is only $600 per month, but it covers me in case an employee claims I violated one of the things listed above. If an employee files a lawsuit, I have to pay the insurance company the first $25,000 to handle the case, but it is a big relief to know that I won't have to lose 30 pounds worrying about having to send an attorney a $20,000 check every few weeks and a relief to not to have to worry about the case going to trial where my cost for an attorney would be about $300,000 and then I could lose and have to pay the Plaintiffs $1 million, or whatever some insane jury awards the Plaintiff(s).
Don't think it can't happen to and I am betting that many property owners will claim they are protected and on top of their game and I will bet that virtually no investor is on top of their game because it is virtually impossible to be so perfect where attorneys cannot find something you did wrong and it doesn't matter if you have the most-perfect business in the world because you can still get sued and then you have to pay $75,000, or more to prove how perfect you are.
My employees, my wife and even I get emails from attorneys asking us to go to their office because there could be something their employer is doing that is violating laws and their rights. My employees show me those messages almost every few weeks. Very scary and your life is thrashed when you unexpectedly get a lawsuit in the mail.