A King County jury awarded over $3 million to our client after a two-week sex discrimination and retaliation trial. We are thrilled that justice was served. Read the full news article here.

BJT, in partnership with the law firm Skidmore & Fomina, is thrilled to distribute settlement checks to more than 200 carpenters and construction workers who were denied rest and meal breaks and other wages by Defendant Newway Forming Concrete.  

A settlement was reached on behalf of Pagliacci delivery drivers who were paid a set amount per delivery rather than by the mile over a period of three years leading up to April 2024, which resulted reimbursement that did not always cover drivers’ costs. Read the full article on the Seattle Times here.

BJT is proud to partner with the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF) once gain. Together we will represent DACA recipients and fight against discriminatory lending practices. Read more here. A link to the complaint filed can be found at this link.

After a 4-week class action trial, BJT’s Dave Breskin and Cindy Heidelberg have obtained a judgment for $21M for a Class of more than 1200 Evergreen Hospital nurses for missed and late rest and meal breaks.

This award and verdict for Washington nurses was the culmination of 7 years of litigation, including successful trips to the Court of Appeals and Washington Supreme Court.  Read those decisions here and here.

On January 13, 2023, BJT, along with co-counsel Julien Mirer & Singla in New York, sued Amazon Prime Air on behalf of former employee Cheddi Skeete. Mr. Skeete alleges that Amazon discriminated against him based on his race, and retaliated against him for complaining about discrimination and for reporting safety violations in Amazon Prime Air’s delivery drone testing program. The full complaint, filed here in Seattle in King County Superior Court, is here.

BJT sued T-Mobile in federal court on June 15, 2022 for making its customers’ phones unusable during T-Mobile’s 5G network roll-out and refusing to give them new phones or compensation.

https://topclassactions.com/lawsuit-settlements/consumer-products/cellphones/t-mobile-class-action-alleges-5g-network-launch-leaves-some-customers-without-service/

BJT sues Amazon on behalf of delivery service providers, alleging that the DSP program violates the Washington consumer protection act and franchise act.

https://www.geekwire.com/2022/a-franchise-in-disguise-amazons-delivery-service-partners-program-will-face-a-key-legal-test/

Kennewick fired its first and only Black fire chief, despite his 40-year career with the department, and his strong record of success as chief. We filed suit with our colleagues at Bloom Law, seeking to hold the city accountable for a blatant double standard.

In these challenging times for restaurant and hotel workers, BJT’s Roger Townsend and Cindy Heidelberg are thrilled to distribute more than $400,000 in settlement checks to current and former employees of the Bellevue Club for missed rest and meal breaks from May 2016 through March 2019.

BJT’s Dave Breskin and Cindy Heidelberg represent current and former registered nurses at Swedish Medical Center facilities throughout Washington who have been denied rest and meal breaks. The parties reached a global settlement of claims in October 2018. As of yesterday, March 16, 2020, all appeals were exhausted, and BJT is thrilled that checks will be distributed to Swedish registered nurses in mid-April 2020.

Attorneys with the ACLU filed suit against Frontier Airlines on behalf of eight women claiming the airline “systematically penalizes flight crew who are pregnant or breastfeeding.”  If you know of similar problems elsewhere contact us.

After over 10 years of litigation, including two trips to the state and federal Supreme Courts, we and our clients finally resolved this long-running wage dispute.  Garda driver/messengers in Washington routinely work 10-14 hours guarding and transporting millions of dollars for their employer’s clients against potentially lethal attack for low wages without breaks.  This settlement will repay them for missed breaks going back to 2006.

Cindy litigates civil cases and appeals in state and federal court, focusing on individual and class action employment and consumer protection cases.  She has argued appeals in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, the Washington Supreme Court, and the Washington Court of Appeals, and has briefed the Washington Supreme Court on behalf of amicus curiae.  She is a passionate advocate for her clients and takes pride in standing up for employees and consumers.

Class of over 5,000 workers certified in Xerox call center case. August 13, 2019.  We represent call center workers in Washington who were paid under Xerox’s “Activity Based Compensation” plans, which pay for “productive” time worked but not all time worked.  After a long appeal, the federal court gave final certification to a class of over 5,000 employees claiming unpaid wages from 2010 to 2014.

In February 2019, the Washington Court of Appeals, Division I, denied Evergreen Hospital Medical Center’s motion to compel arbitration and allowed BJT’s class action on behalf of RNs at Evergreen for unpaid missed rest and meal breaks to continue to trial.  The decision was a victory for workers and reaffirmed that a collective bargaining agreement does not waive workers’ rights to bring statutory claims in court unless the waiver is clear and unmistakable. The Court held that Evergreen’s CBA did not contain a clear and unmistakable waiver.

The King County Superior Court approved a settlement between Gene Juarez and our clients–stylists, colorists, and massage therapists–which ends a lawsuit over paycheck deductions, unpaid training and meetings, and minimum wage and overtime claims.

BJT attorney, Chiedza Nziramasanga, has been accepted into the Washington Leadership Institute (WLI) as a 2019 Fellow. WLI is a 9-month leadership development program whose mission is to recruit, train and develop traditionally underrepresented attorneys for future leadership positions in the Washington State Bar Association and legal community.

BJT obtained a ruling for Washington workers that employers who knowingly or “willfully” violate Washington wage laws must pay double, and also must pay interest on the wages due.