In March, one of several lawsuits against Illinois-based school bus company, Durham School Services (“Durham”) settled for $3.875 million. This class action lawsuit alleging lost wages encompassed all current and former California Durham drivers and school bus monitors who worked for the company between 2012 and 2017. This case is just 1 of several previous suits against Durham in different jurisdictions, and new ones were recently filed in Illinois in April.
In the settled case, plaintiffs claimed that Durham failed to properly compensate its California employees for meal and rest breaks, as well as failed to pay employees for time spent at mandatory training and safety meetings. To date, Durham has paid out over $12 million to workers since 2011 and also settled a previous class action in Baltimore and an audit by the New York State Attorney General. The latest lawsuits against the company involve 17 individual complaints for lost wages by bus drivers in Illinois.
As noted by the Teamsters supporting the Illinois action, “wage theft is particularly exploitative among school bus contractors because their workforce is typically composed of low-wage workers who already struggle to make ends meet.” The case is a great win for plaintiffs and their attorneys. Despite the prior claims against Durham, the class action settlement was hard won. Class actions are difficult to litigate and the consequences of losing mean that a large group of people won’t recover for their injuries.
At RapidFunds, we are former litigators and understand the challenges involved in taking on a class action case. We provide post-settlement funding to law firms with class action cases. Funding is available for settlements with or without final approval. To learn more, contact Sherry Foley, Esq. at sfoley@rapidfunds.com for a consultation.