Elena R. Baca

More often than not Baca is retained on the eve of trial, right when the stakes get too high and a litigation course correction is needed.

“It is certainly intense because you have to in rapid succession understand what happened previously in the litigation, some of which you did not control and you did not know about, some of which you had something to do with,” she said.

That’s what happened when Baca was called upon to defend an employee class action against Dollar Tree Inc. over how it disclosed pay information to its workers.

Employment class actions almost never go to trial because there is too much at stake.

“The dollars are typically so large that compromise is usually the most economical and easiest way to secure certainty,” said Baca, a Paul Hastings partner.

Then there are these “gotcha” cases where the company is sued over a technical or procedural mishap, but because a company feels it shouldn’t change its procedure, it tries its chances with a jury.

This is what happened with Dollar Tree’s case.

“Most would just try to resolve it and move forward,” said Baca. “But this was a unique circumstance where it would have really required changing a fundamental process they had.”

In this matter, the labor code said pay information had to be disclosed to employees a certain amount of times each month. That changes with electronic deposits. Instead of mailing out dummy wage slips, Dollar Tree employees were able to access their wage statements at the cash register anytime during work.

However, the plaintiff felt the statements weren’t reasonably available because they couldn’t be accessed at any time. In the end, the federal jury went on to decide that the company’s statements were made reasonably available to its workers. Guillen v. Dollar Tree Stores Inc., 2:15-cv-03813 (C.D. Cal., filed May 20, 2015).

“I think companies evaluate whether this is something central they want to continue doing, is it something they believe they are doing correctly,” said Baca.

— Justin Kloczko