Esra A. Hudson 

When Esra A. Hudson defends a major financial, insurance or entertainment company against a challenging putative class or representative wage-and-hour action, she often responds with a creative strategy to block or resolve the litigation.

Hudson, who leads Manatt’s employment and labor practice, focuses her own practice on high-stakes matters in California, where the law is increasingly employer-unfriendly, particularly under the state’s Private Attorney General Act.

“There’s a constant stream of appellate cases on issues related to wage-and-hour violations that increases the stakes in PAGA lawsuits — and increasingly unfriendly arbitration decisions as well,” she said. Given the way penalties under the act are aggregated, many cases can easily risk damages in the millions.

“As employer-side lawyers, we have to find creative ways to deal with litigation,” she said.

Hudson did that when she defended a non-California insurance company facing litigation alleging its 4,000 California salespersons were misclassified as independent contractors, among other alleged violations. She defeated one plaintiff’s class action by enforcing an arbitration agreement against the plaintiff in federal court in the insurance company’s home state. She also won an injunction preventing the plaintiff from suing the company further and enforced it with a contempt finding that netted her client a substantial award of fees and costs.

In other words, Hudson managed to “enforce an arbitration agreement that California may have been unwilling to enforce,” she said. She did much the same against another plaintiff in a similar action. Both plaintiffs dismissed their cases in December.

A different creative strategy largely ended a 10-year-long series of wage-and-hour actions against a mortgage company. To do that, “we made the determination to settle one of the claims by one of the plaintiffs and use that settlement as res judicata against other cases,” Hudson said.

“At the time we did that, there was no precedent that … would allow that kind of settlement to act as res judicata against other, ongoing litigations.” The state of California entered the litigation at one point to oppose the strategy, but eventually, she won dismissals. A state appellate court upheld the strategy in an unpublished opinion in September. Acevedo v. CashCall Inc., G05967 (Cal. App. 4th Dist., dec’d Sept. 12, 2022).

Another side of Hudson’s practice is counseling and advising executives, high-profile individuals and some companies facing allegations of wrongdoing. She also advises on crisis management and media relations. “I have represented quite a few people in the entertainment industry when allegations have been made against them and have confidentially navigated resolutions to those types of matters,” she said.

The accusations against her clients have ranged from financial improprieties to sexual or other harassment. “The thing that’s common is the stakes are high because of the potential publicity and the wealth of the individuals or companies involved.”

Hudson credited “an amazing team” for her successes. “We have an incredible department. … I don’t do it alone.”

— Don DeBenedictis