To prepare to represent his Latino worker clients, lawyer John N. Quisenberry is studying case law and drawing up briefs. But he’s also honing his Spanish-speaking skills and will learn how to throw pottery and cook mole in Oaxaca, Mexico.
Quisenberry, head of the The Quisenberry Law Firm, is one of a number of Los Angeles attorneys scrambling to keep up with the increasing number of court cases particularly those involving overtime wages brought by Latino workers. Whether in local schools like Beverly Hills Lingual or overseas in schools like Abanico Spanish Schools in Spain, attorneys are learning to speak Spanish in classes tailored to their profession.
Quisenberry represents Latino workers who allege they were wrongly designated as managers so that they’d be exempt from getting overtime pay. They have filed suit against American Pie LLC’s Claim Jumper restaurants and CKE Restaurants Inc.’s La Salsa franchises.
American Pie did not return calls seeking comment, but a spokeswoman for CKE said: “We do not comment specifically on pending litigation, however as to this point, we deny that we engage in any conduct that violates federal or state wage and hour laws, and vigorously defend against any claim that we do so.”
Lawsuits surge
The number of such overtime cases began to spike in 2000, when the “Eight-Hour-Day Restoration and Workplace Flexibility Act of 1999” went into effect. It has resulted in a flurry of suits from workers who say they were illegally denied overtime. In 2004, the most recent data available, 45,268 wage-related claims were brought statewide, according to the California Department of Industrial Relations.
The cases are not confined to restaurants. Quisenberry’s firm has won judgments in overtime cases against Abercrombie & Fitch Co., Big Lots Inc., The Coca-Cola Co., Dr. Pepper/Seven-Up Bottling Group, and Bed, Bath & Beyond Inc in overtime cases. A case targeting Wal-Mart Stores Inc. is pending.
In meeting with workers while building class action cases, Quisenberry found himself lacking not only in language skills but social awareness. Part of the problem, he found, was that the Latino workers were reluctant to press for their rights as employees. That, coupled with a loyalty to their employers and a reluctance to enter the judicial system, made building cases difficult.
“It’s a cultural thing,” he said. “They’re not trying to maximize what they’re entitled to. They’re not interested in getting the most they can get; their expectations aren’t that high. They’re happy to have a job.
“It’s kind of an older ethic that’s kind of refreshing in some ways because we now have a real entitlement generation,” Quisenberry said.
Tuning into the culture, as well as pronunciation and verb forms, is what sold Quisenberry on the Oaxacan immersion classes.
“The interesting thing to me about Spanish, is once you become attuned to it, it’s hard to avoid opportunities to speak Spanish every day in Los Angeles.,” Quisenberry said.
Limits to learning
The decorated Vietnam fighter pilot will spend May at an immersion school in Mexico. He and his wife, Kathy, will study the language in the mornings and learn how to create pottery and cook Oaxacan-style in the afternoons. Every aspect of the classes could be a challenge.
“I don’t even like mole,” Quisenberry confessed. “But it’s because this is Oaxaca. They cook and they throw pottery and I thought ‘Well this isn’t something that I normally do so I’ll try both of those.’ ”
Quisenberry isn’t starting from scratch. He’s a language buff, who was hired at a large law firm in the 1980s in part because he speaks fluent German. He took a Spanish course at UCLA Extension in 2004 and has been reading the Spanish language newspaper La Opinion every day since.
However, some attorneys, like Dino T. Barajas, a partner at Paul Hastings Janofsky & Walker LLP, are skeptical about the value of “instant Espa & #324;ol.”
“I’ve seen individual attorneys participate in immersion programs,” Barajas said, “and it’s to their credit and to their benefit because they’re showing an interest in the market which the business and legal community in those countries appreciate, but it still ends up being very difficult to conduct business.”
There are limits to what can be learned in a short period of time, Barajas said.
“The language, although not difficult to pick up over time, isn’t done overnight,” he said. “And it’s an entire cultural understanding you learn over your lifetime.”
He pointed out that Latino culture varies widely within Mexico, not to mention from Costa Rica to Chile.
Barajas also pointed out that the language of the courtroom and contracts is particularly challenging.
“The language skills one needs to conduct business and to negotiate and draft Spanish language documents are incredibly difficult to learn in a short period of time, even for native Spanish speakers,” he said.
Quisenberry agrees that picking up Spanish in a hurry doesn’t make sense for everyone.
“It’s a time commitment now in a busy practice,” he said. “Unless you’ve got an interest in it anyway, and it’s a pleasure and you can integrate it into your busy work, it’s not going to be worth it.”
He added that lawyers who learn Spanish specifically to handle cases involving Latinos probably wouldn’t get as much out of it. His firm is committed to working with Latino clients and he’s in it “for the long haul.
