Yesenia M. Gallegos

Overview

Yesenia M. Gallegos is the co-office managing partner for McDermott’s Southern California offices and a partner in the Firm’s Employment Practice Group. She has over two decades of litigation experience representing employers in wage and hour class actions, Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) class actions, California Private Attorneys General Act (PAGA) representative actions, embezzlement disputes, restrictive covenants, and also defends against discrimination, harassment, and retaliation claims. She is also an experienced counselor who provides strategic advice to employers and the C-Suite on mitigating risk in mergers and acquisitions, pay equity, executive compensation and executive employment agreements, employment investigations, enforcement or avoidance of restrictive covenants, managing leaves of absence, and reductions in force.

Results

Defeated a nationwide class action consisting of thousands of job applicants who sought employment with a multi-national manufacturing employer and alleged that they did not receive clear and conspicuous notice that the employer would perform a background check and thereby violated their rights under the FCRA by successfully opposing class certification, and thereafter successfully opposing the class representative’s motion for leave to amend the complaint in an effort to revise his class claims, which resulting in a victory for the employer on all FCRA-related class claims
Significantly reduced alleged exposure in a California wage and hour class action and PAGA representative action against a healthcare staffing company and its client, by promptly securing the dismissal of the staffing company’s client from the action, followed by the prompt dismissal of the class claims and prompt resolution of the remaining PAGA-only representative action consisting of the claims of only non-exempt workers in a narrowly tailored position who were employed with the healthcare staffing company in a limited period of time

Obtained a court order dismissing a wage and hour class action after more than five years of litigation on the grounds that continued litigation would violate California’s five-year rule*
Obtained a court order dismissing an employee’s claims for fraud and negligent misrepresentations with the use of a special motion to strike/anti- Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation (SLAPP) motion after the employee was unsuccessful in obtaining a judgment for wrongful termination against the employer and sought to prosecute new claims*
Obtained a court order dismissing a program director of a nonprofit academic organization when both she and the school were sued by a former employee alleging retaliation, intentional infliction of emotional distress, among other claims*
Obtained declaratory judgment in favor of a California technology company and successfully opposed its competitor company’s efforts to enforce a noncompetition provision that would have precluded the California company from employing an executive who had previously been employed by the competitor (a non-California based company)*
Obtained a judgment in favor of a global commercial battery manufacturer and service provider in a disability discrimination and failure to accommodate case filed by a former employee pursuant to the California Fair Employment and Housing Act by establishing that the employee was terminated in compliance with the employer’s non-discriminatory leave of absence policies, and by demonstrating that the plaintiff could not meet his burden of establishing that the employer’s decision was motivated by discriminatory animus*
One of two partners who represented CLS Transportation in the pivotal wage and hour class action Iskanian v. CLS Transportation Los Angeles, wherein the California Supreme Court held that Concepcion v. AT&T overruled the state’s supreme court decision in Gentry v. Superior Court, affirming the decision that class action waivers in employment arbitration agreement are enforceable*
Successfully appealed the California Employment Development Department’s tax and penalty assessment levied against a California employer resulting in an 85 percent reduction in penalties*
Obtained judgment in favor of a national retail corporation sued by a former employee claiming disability discrimination, failure to engage in interactive process and failure to accommodate*