Page 41 - AVN November 2015

this column has heard more than one judge acknowledge that class actions are all
in common. Here, they probably do. Each claim is a half-hour of the employee’s
about the plaintiffs’ lawyers. The attorneys fatten their bank accounts; the victims
get little.
Having said all of that, class actions have their benefits. For example, if a bank
swindles its millions of customers for 27¢ each or is contemplating doing so, class
actions, or the threat of them as the case may be, are a powerful weapon.
Another very frequent source of class actions—which hits a little closer
to home—is employment law violations. For example, the federal Fair Labor
Standards Act and the regulations promulgated thereunder require payment of
minimum wage, as well as premium wages for overtime. Suppose a company has
a policy that every Friday each hourly employee stay for an extra half hour for
the purpose of cleaning up their work stations, but decides that the employees
should not be paid for that time—the theory being that the employees created the
messes, so they should be required to clean them up. Parenthetically, if you are
an employer and it is not obvious to you that this is a totally bone-head policy,
tomorrow morning retain an attorney experienced in employment law—and hope
that you don’t get sued for anything you have been doing.
In this example, the FLSA requires that the employees be paid for this time—a
half hour for each impacted employee per week. If there are only ten impacted
employees, a lawsuit is worthwhile without benefit of a class action, especially
since employees who successfully sue employers almost always can recover
attorney’s fees.
However, if there are 1,000 employees, a class action is worthy of consideration.
Cramming 1,000 plaintiffs into a courtroom is an absurd notion. The issue of
whether there are too many people for regular joinder is called that of “numerosity.”
Next is the question of whether the claims of the class members have enough
hourly salary times how many free half-hours the employee worked. That is easily
established by business records. And the basis for each claim is identical.
Finally, there is the question of adequacy of representation, to which there
are two prongs. Prong One is whether the representative plaintiffs adequately
represent the class. For example, if there is only one plaintiff who seeks to be the
class representative, and that plaintiff has some unique circumstance—maybe has
terminal cancer or was convicted of forging time cards—the representation may be
inadequate.
Prong Two is whether the lawyers can adequately represent the class. If the
attorney who seeks to be appointed class representative passed the bar exam six
months before filing the suit, it is doubtful as to whether the court would find that
attorney to be an adequate representative of the class.
Now, if there is a problem with Prong One and/or Prong Two, the judge has
the power to correct that. Another class member or three can be identified for
potential class representation. And one or more additional or substitute class
attorneys can be designated.
One final item: Class-action law comes in two flavors, California and
everywhere else, especially when it comes to employment law. Not only does
California have plaintiff-friendly class action rules, it has the most absurd and
dizzying thicket of employment law regulations that you can imagine. One issue is
that California keeps fighting with the Federal Arbitration Act, which fight will be
the topic of next month’s column.
Take away: As this column has tried to pound into readers heads for years,
if you have employees, it is crucial to have an employee manual—especially in
California.
Internet Industry Vets Band Together as Revolution Force
Several internet industry veterans
have come together to launch
Revolution Force, an exclusive
affiliate network.
Acording to company founder
Sean Christian, “Revolution Force
has 50 years of combined experience
in areas of affiliate marketing, media buying, demand
generation, search engine marketing, search engine
optimization, and product development.” That
experience was earned while building many of the
largest online brands.
“When you look at Revolution Force’s team
leaders, you’ll notice we have built the world’s largest
dating sites and award winning affiliate programs
including globally recognizable brands like Adult
FriendFinder, Cams.com, Penthouse, UpForIt,
Together Networks, Cupid PLC, ClickDealer, Hustler
and Vivid. That level of success is important, because
past success is the single best indicator of just how
likely you are to exceed your own goals,” Christian
said.
There is no shortage of CPA and ad networks
online these days, but Christian argues that
Revolution Force is already able to differentiate itself
from other brands in very significant ways.
“Revolution Force partners with top advertisers,
helping them to acquire users and optimize their
KPIs by utilizing our unique access to down-funnel
sales metrics and optimize methods that consistently
deliver industry leading performance results,”
said Christian. “When you work with a team that
includes Brent Simpson, Carmelo Lo Giudice,
Jeremy Wagshul, Mark Rabinovitz and myself, you
are getting direct access to a team that has built
more than a handful of half-billion-dollar companies
already. Check the biographies posted on our website
at RevolutionForce.com or ask around and it will
immediately become obvious why we are all so
excited about this launch.”
Revolution Force has built and implemented its
own marketing budget as an efficient way to test
every offer and gain first-hand intelligence about the
exact eCPM, and ePC of every opportunity before
opening the offers up to strategic partners and client
accounts.
“We put our own money where our mouth is,” said
Brent Simpson, vice president of Revolution Force.
“And that is a crucial component of everything we do.
Frankly, we believe there are too many consultants
out there willing to spend your
money to test their theories and
that isn’t how traffic consulting
should work. We tabulate real data
from our own media buys and our
clients benefit from every click we
test because the money we spend
becomes money they can save and use elsewhere in
their operations to compound the growth of their
brands.”
“The idea to build this network was simple,”
said Lo Giudice. “We don’t want to compete with
companies anymore; we want to partner with them.
Our industry reputation is strong enough that putting
together an affiliate network and creating marketing
technology makes perfect sense. We already have had
a hand in building much of the early performance
technology that networks rely on today, so for us
it’s simple to talk about traffic acquisition with our
affiliates and leverage their properties while helping
our clients and strategic partners to monetize that
traffic in ways that will yield an impressive ROI.”
New accounts can visit RevolutionForce.com to
learn more about the specific services being offered
and to get a deeper understanding of what the team
has to offer to companies seeking to enhance their
profits online.
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