18th Annual Workplace Class Action Report - 2022 Edition

Annual Workplace Class Action Litigation Report: 2022 Edition 5 In terms of the story behind the numbers, the breakouts by type of workplace class action settlements are instructive. In 2021, employers saw a monumental upward swing in the settlement values of wage & hour claims, ERISA class actions, and private statutory claims. In contrast, corporate America saw significant decreases across-the- board for resolutions of class actions involving employment discrimination claims and government enforcement litigation. The following chart illustrates the overall results in these categories for 2021 settlement numbers: By type of case, settlement values in wage & hour claims, ERISA class actions, and private statutory cases experienced the most significant increases. On the wage & hour front, the value of the top 10 wage & hour class action settlements ballooned in 2021 to $641.3 million. In 2020, the value of those settlements fell off significantly from the previous year. In 2020, the value of the top 10 wage & hour settlements was $294.60 million, compared with $449.05 million in 2019. In 2021, the value of the top 10 wage & hours class action settlements made a resurgence to a number higher than the number in any year of the past decade aside from 2016. The 2021 value of $641.3 million held slightly lower than the high water mark reached in 2016 ($695.5 million) but otherwise exceeded every other year of the past decade, including 2020 ($294.6 million), 2019 ($449.05 million), 2018 ($253.5 million), 2017 ($525 million), 2015 ($463.6 million), 2014 ($215.3 million), 2013 ($248.45 million), and 2012 ($292 million). Considering the trend starting in 2015, aside from dips in 2018 and 2020, the value of the top 10 wage & hour settlements exceeded $400 million in every year, for an adjusted five-year average of $537.43 million, or an overall seven-year average of $462.18 million. Adding the numbers, corporate America saw over $3.235 billion devoted to settling the top 10 wage & hour settlements over that seven-year period. As the plaintiffs’ class action bar continues to find avenues to avoid the impact of the 2018 ruling in Epic Systems on businesses inclined to adopt mandatory workplace arbitration programs with class action waivers, and as cases subject to that precedent continue to work their way out of the pipeline, we anticipate that settlement numbers will continue to climb in 2022.