Getting Paid What You Earned
Ask most people if their employer stole from them and they'll say no. Ask if they've worked through a break, stayed past a shift, covered an expense, or carried a title that didn't match the job—and the answer changes. California law demands every dollar. So do we.
The insider truth about
unpaid earnings.
I spent years advising companies on their employment practices, seeing firsthand exactly how decisions about your time and your paycheck get made. What I learned is that the line rarely gets crossed through some dramatic corporate scandal. It happens through ordinary, everyday choices—made by people who assume no one is checking.
The break you worked through, deducted anyway. The impressive title that quietly strips away your overtime. The out-of-pocket expenses you never saw again.
I built Lion Law to put an end to it.
Does this sound like your workplace?
If what you see here reflects your experience—or something at work simply feels wrong—trust that feeling. It's often the beginning of a case.
California law protects your paycheck more than federal law does. Hourly (non-exempt) employees earn overtime after 8 hours in a single day—not just 40 in a week—and double time after 12. When an employer rounds your hours down, expects you to work off-the-clock, or alters your timecard, those hours don't just vanish. Those hours are still owed. The records exist. We know how to get them.
Breaks aren't a favor—they're a legal right. California requires most employers to provide a thirty-minute meal break for shifts over five hours and a ten-minute rest break for every four hours worked. When those breaks are denied, interrupted, or quietly discouraged, the employer owes one hour of pay for each violation. We make sure every one of them is accounted for.
The law sets strict deadlines for when wages must be paid—and California goes further than most states in penalizing employers who miss them. A final paycheck withheld after termination, wages held back without justification, or a consistently late payment schedule all carry real legal consequences. The recovery is often more than the original amount owed.
In California, the vacation and PTO you earn is treated as wages—it accrues, it's yours, and it must be paid out when you leave a job. How time off is calculated and what happens to it can vary depending on your employer and where you work. But the core principle holds: earned time off cannot simply be taken away. If you're not sure whether you received everything you were owed, that's worth exploring.
If a company controls how, when, and where you work, the law may consider you an employee—regardless of what your contract says. California's standard for determining employment status is one of the strictest in the country, and workers treated as independent contractors are often entitled to overtime, breaks, expense reimbursements, and more. What you were called on paper doesn't determine what you're owed. The reality of how you worked does.
The law requires employers to reimburse employees for necessary work expenses—mileage, phone usage, equipment, home office costs, and more. When companies treat those costs as the employee's problem, the law disagrees. This includes remote workers who absorbed the cost of doing their job from home. The amount that accumulates over time is recoverable—and the obligation to reimburse it was never optional.
A wage claim isn't just a refund for your missing hours. The law is designed to punish the behavior—meaning the legal penalties often eclipse the unpaid wages themselves. The system was built to make cutting corners incredibly expensive.
The wages themselves
Waiting-time penalties
Break premiums
Interest
Your legal fees
You don't pay unless we win
Straight answers—no legalese, no runaround.
In California, overtime starts after 8 hours in a single day—not just 40 in a week. If you're a non-exempt employee, you earn time-and-a-half for hours past 8 in a day or 40 in a week, and double time for hours past 12 in a day. This daily overtime rule is stronger than federal law, and it's the one employers most often get wrong.
You're entitled to an unpaid, off-duty 30-minute meal break before the end of your fifth hour of work, and a paid 10-minute rest break for every four hours you work. If you work more than 12 hours in a day, you're generally owed a second meal break. The meal break has to be truly duty-free—if you had to stay on-call or keep working, it may not count.
If your employer fails to provide a required meal or rest break, they owe you one extra hour of pay at your regular rate for each one (Labor Code § 226.7). Meal and rest breaks are counted separately, so being denied both in the same day means two hours of premium pay. Over months or years, that can add up to big money.
If you were fired or laid off, your final wages are due immediately. If you quit with at least 72 hours' notice, they're due on your last day; without notice, within 72 hours. If your employer willfully misses that deadline, it can owe a waiting-time penalty of your daily wages for each day the check is late—up to 30 days (Labor Code § 203).
No. You have to be paid for all the time you actually work whenever your employer knows—or should know—you're working. That includes tasks before you clock in, cleanup after you clock out, answering calls or messages from home, and any work squeezed into an unpaid break. If it's work, it's payable.
Possibly. Being paid a salary doesn't automatically make you exempt from overtime. To be exempt, you generally have to meet both a salary minimum and a duties test—and your job title alone doesn't decide it. If you're called a "manager" but spend most of your time doing the same work as the people you supposedly manage, you may be owed overtime. Misclassification like this is common.
It depends on how you actually work, not just what your contract says. California uses a strict test, and companies get it wrong often. If the business controls how, when, and where you do your job, you may legally be an employee—which can mean you're owed overtime, breaks, expense reimbursement, and penalties going back years. Some occupations are exempt by law, but many people labeled "contractors" don't actually qualify.
Generally, yes. California requires employers to reimburse the necessary expenses you take on to do your job (Labor Code § 2802)—things like mileage, work-related phone use, equipment, and, for remote employees, a reasonable share of internet and home-office costs. When a company treats those as your problem instead of theirs, that's a violation, and the unpaid amount is recoverable.
For most unpaid wages, overtime, and missed-break pay, the deadline is generally three years, and up to four if a written contract is involved. Some penalty claims, like those for inaccurate pay stubs, have a shorter one-year window. Because each paycheck can count as its own violation, the longer you wait, the more of the oldest claims could fall away—so it's worth speaking to an attorney immediately to protect what you’re owed.
Three commitments.
Every client. Every case.
No fee unless we win
Your fight becomes ours.
Here for you. Always.
