Elena R. Baca

It’s common knowledge that certified class actions rarely reach trial. When one did against Dollar Tree Inc. using creative legal arguments, Baca made sure her client came out the winner. A class of employees at the discount store sued, arguing that because they were paid electronically, the additional pay information due on stubs needed to be electronically available as well. Per company policy, Dollar Tree issues those documents physically at registers. Guillen v. Dollar Tree Stores, Inc. et al., 15-cv-03813 (C.D. Cal., filed May 20, 2015).

The rub of the case, Baca said, was that the law did not clearly define a route forward, so it became a matter of showing that employees were getting everything they were due, regardless of format.

“Here’s why it was a complicated case. Nothing in the labor code says how you’re supposed to deliver that information,” she said. “We were litigating something that wasn’t in the statutes.”

Baca showed that the grand majority of employees could obtain the physical documents at no inconvenience. After less than an hour of deliberation, the jury returned a total defense verdict, another rarity.

Baca is also litigating a two-jurisdiction dispute over post-employment limitations on a former executive for client Amphenol Corp. An executive left for a competing company with trade secrets and sought to invalidate a temporary restraining order forbidding the sharing of that information. Glenair, Inc., et al. v. Amphenol Corporation, et al., EC065871 (L.A. Super. Ct., filed Nov. 30, 2016).

Scheduled to proceed to trial later this year, Baca has already succeeded in winning a preliminary injunction against the executive in the Texas jurisdiction.

In another case, Baca won a dismissal of a defamation claim by the former American Apparel CEO Dov Charney. After the executive’s heavily publicized ouster due to a multitude of improprieties, a board member emailed all employees detailing those reasons for the firing. Charney claimed the email was defamatory. Charney v. American Apparel Inc. et al., BC581602 (L.A. Super. Ct., filed May 12, 2015).

The trial court ruled in Baca’s favor after finding the email was an exercise of the board member’s free speech on an issue of public interest. On appeal, she won again.

She is currently fighting a $20 million arbitration demand by Charney for alleged wrongful termination. When it comes to her practice, Baca said she anticipates more trade secret and executive mobility disputes on the horizon.

“So much of what we create is our [intellectual property] or services with derivative IP. There’s going to be attention on the movement of executives as they change their roles, and the information they have,” she said.

She added that harassment in the workplace, which has taken a leading role in the public perception of employment law, remains prominent.

“Jurors are reading article after article of abuse of power, so navigating that and what it will really mean will be one of the challenges for companies moving forward,” she said. She stressed the importance of education to try and combat harassment in the workplace, and balancing diversity and inclusion with fairness.

“People don’t do things they don’t think they can do,” she said.

— Andy Serbe