Labor, Employment & ERISA

SGT represents employees and retirees across the full range of workplace and benefits misconduct: unpaid wages, overtime, and other wage-and-hour violations; discrimination based on race, color, national origin, religion, age, gender, sexual orientation, or disability; the mismanagement or misuse of retirement and benefit plans under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA); mass layoffs in violation of the WARN Act; and retaliation against whistleblowers, including under the False Claims Act.

SGT investigates employer practices and plan records, works with economic and actuarial experts, and litigates against major employers and their defense firms in state and federal courts and on appeal.

A successful case can recover unpaid wages and overtime, back pay, lost or improperly reduced benefits, and other damages, and can require an employer to change the unlawful practice or restore a mismanaged plan. Recoveries are typically shared among class members according to the harm each suffered.

These cases are brought on behalf of workers who share a common harm: employees subject to the same pay practice, workers affected by the same discriminatory policy, or participants in the same retirement or benefit plan. SGT represents employees, retirees, and unions nationwide.

SGT has litigated landmark labor and benefits cases and recovered hundreds of millions of dollars for the employees and retirees it represents. As court-appointed lead counsel for a class of more than 40,000 unionized public employees, the firm won a federal appeals court ruling that mass layoffs violated the employees' constitutional rights and a settlement providing more than $250 million in awards. In a separate nationwide case, SGT served as lead counsel for approximately 40,000 employees and retirees whose pension benefits were increased through an ERISA settlement.