An overtime claim rarely arrives quietly. One letter from a former employee, a demand for years of back pay, and suddenly your payroll practices are the thing keeping you up at night. You need a senior attorney who defends employers, tells you the truth, and handles it.
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You are not the first San Diego business owner to open that envelope, and you will not be the last. California overtime rules are unforgiving, the penalties stack quickly, and a single claim can feel like it threatens everything you have built. That fear is understandable. It is also manageable with the right counsel.
For more than 26 years, Karin Backstrom has represented California employers exclusively, litigating over 500 employment matters after training at two of the nation’s largest employer-defense firms.
Whether your situation is a single unpaid-overtime demand or part of a wider wage and hour dispute, you work directly with a senior employer defense attorney in San Diego, not a rotating junior associate. When a claim escalates toward the San Diego Superior Court, our employment litigation defense experience is already in your corner.
Bring us the claim that landed on your desk. In one honest conversation you will know your realistic exposure, your options, and your next move, before you make a decision you cannot undo.
California does not follow the simpler federal approach of paying overtime only after 40 hours in a week. State law measures overtime by the day as well as the week, which is where many well-meaning San Diego employers get caught.
As of 2026, a non-exempt employee generally earns one and a half times their regular rate for hours worked beyond eight in a single workday, and again for the first eight hours of a seventh consecutive workday. Double the regular rate applies after twelve hours in a day, and after eight hours on that seventh consecutive day.
The regular rate itself trips up more payroll systems than the multipliers do, because it is not simply an hourly wage. Nondiscretionary bonuses, commissions, and shift differentials generally must be folded into the rate before overtime is calculated. An employer who pays a bonus but runs overtime on base pay alone can create exposure without ever realizing it.
Small, repeated miscalculations across many pay periods are exactly how a modest-looking claim grows into a serious number. For the current rates and thresholds, the California Department of Industrial Relations is the authoritative source, and every situation deserves a look at your actual records rather than a rule of thumb.
The most common and most costly assumption in California is that a salaried worker, or anyone with a title like manager or supervisor, is automatically exempt from overtime. California law does not work that way.
To treat an employee as exempt under the executive, administrative, or professional categories, an employer generally must satisfy both a salary test and a duties test, and the burden of proving the exemption falls on the employer.
On the salary side, most exempt white-collar employees must earn at least twice the state minimum wage for full-time work, which as of 2026 amounts to $70,304 per year. On the duties side, the employee must actually spend more than half their time on genuinely exempt work that involves independent judgment.
A person called a manager who spends most of the week doing the same tasks as the crew is frequently non-exempt in the eyes of the law, whatever the job description says.
Misclassification does not stop at the exempt line. Treating a worker as an independent contractor when the relationship looks like employment raises its own exposure under California’s classification standards.
The distinction is fact-specific, and it is worth understanding the independent contractor vs. employee before it becomes the center of a dispute. Because classifications are usually applied to a whole category of workers rather than one person, a single misclassified role can quietly signal a company-wide pattern.
Most owners only learn a role was misclassified after a claim forces the question. A senior attorney can review how your team is classified now, while fixing it is still on your terms and far less expensive.
The hours after a claim lands matter, and the instinct to fix it yourself is usually the wrong one. A few steps protect your position while you get counsel involved.
A Labor Commissioner claim or agency notice carries strict response windows, and a missed deadline can turn a defensible matter into a default.
Time records, payroll data, schedules, handbooks, and classification decisions should be locked down exactly as they exist today.
Well-intended conversations can be read as retaliation and can create a second claim on top of the first.
Conversations with your attorney are privileged in a way that conversations with an HR consultant or a friend are not.
If the claim has already been filed as a lawsuit rather than an agency claim, the sequence and the stakes shift again. It helps to understand how to respond to an employee lawsuit in California before you take any step that cannot be walked back.
Our approach is practical rather than combative for its own sake. The first job is an honest read of your exposure, because you cannot make a good decision about settling or fighting until you know the realistic range of what the matter could cost. From there we build the defense around the facts your records actually support.
Depending on the facts, that can mean showing an exemption was applied correctly, or proving your timekeeping and payment were accurate. It can also mean narrowing the claim period under the statute of limitations, or resolving the matter at a Labor Commissioner conference before it grows. Many overtime claims sit alongside broader unpaid wage disputes, so we defend the whole picture rather than a single line item.
Throughout, you get a clear recommendation and the reasoning behind it, and the decision to settle or fight stays yours.
The reason a single overtime complaint deserves serious attention is that it seldom stays single. Pay and classification practices usually apply across a whole group. That means one employee’s claim can invite a class action or a representative action under California’s Private Attorneys General Act, where penalties are calculated across many workers and many pay periods at once.
That is where early, experienced defense earns its keep. Understanding your PAGA defense options at the outset can shape how the first claim is handled and whether it spreads. We defend representative PAGA actions and class wage matters directly, and the goal is always to contain exposure before it multiplies rather than react after it has.
Business owners and HR leaders across San Diego County and throughout California hire this firm for a specific combination they struggle to find elsewhere.
You get the credentials of a national employer-defense practice with the direct access and responsiveness of a boutique, and you get an attorney whose loyalty is never divided.
From our office in Old Town San Diego, we represent employers only, across the full state.
The firm represents employers exclusively, so there is no conflict and no divided attention. Your interest is the only interest.
You deal with Karin, not a hand-off. The attorney who assesses your matter is the attorney who handles it.
No grandstanding and no false promises, just a clear read of what you are facing and what your options are under California law.
Karin teaches courses for the Human Resources Certification Institute, the body behind the PHR and SPHR credentials, which speaks the same language as the HR leaders we work with.
An overtime claim moves faster than most owners expect, and the sooner we look at it together, the more options you keep. Speak directly with Karin, not an intake screener.
California requires overtime pay based on daily hours as well as weekly hours. As of 2026, non-exempt employees generally earn one and a half times their regular rate after eight hours in a workday and after 40 hours in a workweek, and double their rate after twelve hours in a day. That daily trigger is stricter than federal law, which is why employers who follow only the federal 40-hour rule often fall out of compliance.
Exemption is narrow and must be proven by the employer. A worker generally qualifies only if they meet both a salary test and a duties test. As of 2026 most exempt white-collar employees must earn at least $70,304 per year, and they must spend the majority of their time on genuinely exempt duties involving independent judgment. A salary or a title alone does not create an exemption.
A misclassification can expose the employer to unpaid overtime, meal and rest period premiums, wage-statement penalties, waiting-time penalties, interest, and attorney fees, often reaching back several years. Because the same classification usually applies to a group of employees, one misclassified role can signal broader liability. That is why an early, candid review of your classifications is worth far more than a reaction after a claim is filed.
Unpaid overtime claims generally reach back three years, and up to four years when brought under California's unfair competition law. That lookback is one reason exposure adds up, since a recurring payroll practice repeated over several years multiplies across every affected pay period. Narrowing the relevant period is frequently part of a well-built defense.
Treat the response deadline as the first priority, preserve all payroll and timekeeping records without altering them, avoid any direct contact with the employee that could look like retaliation, and get privileged legal counsel involved before the conference. A represented employer is generally in a materially stronger position than one who walks into the process alone.
Yes, and this is the risk owners underestimate most. Because pay and classification practices apply across groups of workers, one complaint can become a class action or a representative action under the Private Attorneys General Act, where penalties are assessed across many employees at once. Handling the first claim well, with that escalation risk in mind, is central to containing it.
Every day an overtime claim sits unanswered, your position narrows and your options shrink. Put a senior San Diego employer-defense attorney on it now and take back control of what happens next.
