Bryan J. Schwartz

Litigating for workers' rights is the focus for Schwartz. The pandemic hasn't slowed him down. "When it hit, I had all this vacation scheduled--there was an East Coast swing, Hawaii, Alaska. That's all off, so if anything I'm working harder than ever," he said.

Schwartz worked remotely until the end of June, he said. "I came into the office to take some Zoom depos. There was just too much paper for me to sit in my recliner at home. I needed my desk."

A recent focus has been his successful strategy when defendants in potential class actions seek to compel arbitration. In some cases, Schwartz simply says OK and represents his clients before arbiters. In a major case that settled for $6 million in April 2020, a group of 524 real estate appraisers claimed serious wage violations: if the appraisers put in for overtime, the company deemed their efficiency decreased and used that as an excuse to cut guaranteed incentive compensation. Mitchell v. CoreLogic Inc., 17-cv-02274 (C.D. Cal., filed Dec. 29, 2017).

Schwartz filed as a potential class action. The defense successfully compelled arbitration, so he and co-counsel filed 160 individual arbitration demands. "They leapt out of the frying pan into the fire," Schwartz said. "In the end they were begging us to get back into court. Judges don't charge fees for their time, but here, 160 arbitrators were billing them at $500 an hour."

CoreLogic's lawyers tried the ploy of refusing to cooperate with the arbitrations they had compelled on the theory of alleged ethical concerns over the plaintiffs' lawyers proceeding in states where they're unlicensed. That cost the defense $86,000 in sanctions. Schwartz and colleagues obtained a tentative class certification for those not compelled to arbitration, leading to the settlement.

"Reversal of the overtime policy that incensed the appraisers was built into the settlement," Schwartz said. "I'm proud that in addition to good compensation, we got reform. I make that a priority. I became a civil rights lawyer to change things."

In a potential class action alleging race harassment of Tesla autoworkers by the pervasive, unaddressed use of the "n" word at the Fremont manufacturing plant, Schwartz beat Tesla's motion to compel arbitration for many class members at the trial court in 2018; the denial was affirmed by a state appellate panel and the case is back in litigation. Vaughn v. Tesla, RG17882082 (Alameda Co. Super. Ct., filed Nov. 13, 2017).

"Even those who signed arbitration agreements and would otherwise be in our class can still be our witnesses, and the court has ordered Tesla to produce their contact information," Schwartz said. "And if a lot of them with arbitration agreements assert claims, I don't know that that will work to Tesla's advantage."

-- John Roemer