Author: WorkCompAcademy

In approximately 2002, Ruben Martinez, and his son, Alex Martinez, opened a medical clinic in Calexico.

In 2009, a chiropractor, Dr. Steven Rigler, moved his practice into the clinic and examined patients who were referred to him by Ruben and Alex and were receiving workers’ compensation benefits.

Dr. Rigler did not pay rent or utilities or contribute to the salaries of clinic staff. In exchange, Rigler permitted Ruben and Alex to determine the providers to whom Dr. Rigler’s patients would be referred for ancillary medical services. These ancillary service providers compensated Ruben and Alex for the referrals, and Ruben and Alex split the referral fees evenly.

In 2010, Gonzalo Ernesto Paredes was the office administrator for an entity called Advanced Radiology, owned by Dr. Ronald Grusd. Ruben Martinez entered into an agreement with Paredes, on behalf of Dr. Grusd, through which Advanced Radiology would pay Ruben a referral fee for patients referred to Advanced Radiology for magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans.

Thereafter, Paredes implemented the agreement with Ruben by, among other activities, receiving invoices from Ruben for patient referral fees and arranging payment of those fees to Ruben.

Paredes and Grusd were tried in federal court in 2017. Grusd was found guilty on all 42 counts that went to the jury. The jury hung on the counts against Paredes. The federal case against Paredes was subsequently dismissed by the government, without prejudice, pending his trial on state charges.

A jury in the state court trial found Paredes guilty of 35 counts of offering or delivering compensation for workers’ compensation patient referrals and 16 counts of concealing an event affecting an insurance claim.

The trial court sentenced Paredes to an aggregate term of five years in prison.

On appeal, Paredes claims that the prosecutor committed misconduct during his examination of one of the witnesses and during closing argument by suggesting the existence of facts not in evidence. Paredes also maintains that the trial court erred in excluding, as hearsay, an unavailable witness’s testimony from a prior federal trial. Finally, Paredes contends that there is insufficient evidence to support the verdicts.

The Court of Appeal affirmed the conviction in the unpublished case of People v. Gonzalo Ernesto Paredes.

The appellate court rejected his arguments one by one, and concluded that there was substantial evidence supporting his conviction.

A proposed class action just filed in a federal court in California, alleges Sun-Maid Growers of California has failed to pay proper wages and provide adequate meal and rest breaks to workers at its raisin and dried fruit processing plant.

The plaintiff, who worked for Sun-Maid from September 2016 to March 2020, alleges in the 55-page complaint that the company has unilaterally and unlawfully failed to accurately calculate overtime wages to avoid paying such.

Further, Sun-Maid has allegedly failed to accurately record the amount of time employees worked despite being required by law to do so, and permitted work to be done off the clock without pay, the case says.

More specifically, the lawsuit alleges Sun-Maid required the plaintiff and similarly situated employees to work while clocked out during what was supposed to be off-duty meal breaks. The plaintiff, the suit claims, was from time to time interrupted by work assignments, and there were many days where the man did not even receive a partial lunch, according to the lawsuit. Per the case, Sun-Maid workers were deprived of an off-duty meal period for every five hours worked during a shift, as well as a second off-duty meal period when they were required to work 10 hours.

Further, the lawsuit claims Sun-Maid, from time to time, failed to pay wages, including overtime, for every hour worked, such that employees were in aggregate underpaid wages due to the defendant’s “pattern and practice of unevenly rounding” their hours worked. Instead of receiving overtime at one-and-one-half times their regular rate of pay,

The case alleges Sun-Maid failed to include non-discretionary incentive pay in employees’ regular rates of pay for the purpose of calculating overtime wages. Per the suit, workers were also underpaid when it came to sick pay, as Sun-Maid allegedly failed to pay such at their regular pay rate and instead remitted the wages based on their base rates of pay sans non-discretionary incentives.

The case also alleges Sun-Maid failed to reimburse workers for business expenses, in particular for the required use of their personal cell phones for work purposes.

Sun-Maid has not yet entered an appearance in the federal case, and has not filed any responsive document.

A San Dimas man pleaded guilty to a criminal charge that he fraudulently obtained more than $500,000 in COVID-19-related unemployment benefits in the names of foreign nationals he falsely claimed were local real estate agents hit hard financially by the pandemic.

50 year old Bonifacio Jastilana Marinas, pleaded guilty to a single-count criminal information charging him with mail fraud.

According to his plea agreement, from April 2020 to August 2020, Marinas took advantage of provisions in the CARES Act to file approximately 85 unemployment insurance claims with the California Employment Development Department (EDD) that falsely asserted that the named claimants were self-employed real estate agents in Los Angeles County whose jobs had been adversely impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Marinas often listed his own real estate business – Vintage Realty & Finance Inc., located in West Covina – as the purported workplace of the named claimants.

In actuality, the named claimants resided in Saipan or the Philippines, were not registered as real estate agents in Los Angeles County, had no employment history in California, and were not eligible for the benefits Marinas claimed.

Marinas listed his own residence as the mailing address for each of the named claimants, the plea agreement states. As a result, the debit cards used to distribute the unemployment benefits were mailed to Marinas, who then used them to withdraw the fraudulently obtained funds.

In his plea agreement, Marinas admitted that his scheme caused losses to EDD and the United States Treasury of at least $516,244.

The Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act passed by Congress and signed into law in March 2020, helped provide unemployment insurance benefits during the COVID-19 pandemic to people who did not otherwise qualify, including business owners, self-employed workers, independent contractors, and those with a limited work history.

A June 24 sentencing hearing has been scheduled, at which time Marinas will face a statutory maximum sentence of 20 years in federal prison.

This matter was investigated by the Department of Labor Office of Inspector General, IRS Criminal Investigation; the United States Postal Inspection Service, and the United States Secret Service. EDD Investigations provided substantial assistance.

The New York Attorney General filed a lawsuit against Amazon over its failures to provide adequate health and safety measures for employees at the company’s New York facilities and Amazon’s retaliatory actions against multiple employees amidst the COVID-19 pandemic.

An investigation into Amazon started in March 2020 following numerous complaints about the lack of precautions taken to protect employees in Amazon facilities as New York was ravaged by COVID-19.

The investigation was later broadened to examine whether Amazon unlawfully fired or disciplined employees who reported these safety concerns. In particular, the investigation focused on two facilities with a combined workforce of more than 5,000 individuals.

The investigation uncovered evidence showing that Amazon’s health and safety response violated state law with respect to cleaning and disinfection protocols, contact tracing, and generally permitting employees to take necessary precautions to protect themselves from the risk of COVID-19 infection, among other things.

For example, Amazon was notified of at least 250 employees at the Staten Island facility who had positive COVID-19 tests or diagnoses, with more than 90 of those individuals present in the facility within seven days of notification to Amazon. However, in all but seven of these instances, Amazon failed to close any portion of the facility after learning of the positive cases.

Additionally, Amazon implemented an inadequate COVID-19 tracing program that failed to consistently identify workers who came into close contact with employees who tested positive for COVID-19. On occasions when a worker reported having close contact with a coworker with a positive COVID-19 test, Amazon dismissed the worker’s concerns and did not investigate or follow up on the reports.

The evidence also demonstrates that Amazon unlawfully fired and disciplined workers who reported their concerns about Amazon’s compliance with these health and safety mandates.

The lawsuit, filed in the Supreme Court of New York County, argues that Amazon’s actions are in violation of New York labor, whistleblower protection, and anti-retaliation laws. The suit seeks broad injunctive relief and damages, including:

– – Requiring Amazon to take all affirmative steps, including changing policies, conducting training, and undergoing monitoring, among others, to ensure that Amazon reasonably and adequately protects the lives, health, and safety of its employees.
– – Awarding backpay, liquidated damages, emotional distress damages, and reinstatement for former employee Christian Smalls.
– – Awarding liquidated damages and emotional distress damages for employee Derrick Palmer.
– – Requiring Amazon to give up the profits it made as a result of its illegal acts.