Plaintiff Timothy O’Cain alleges that Paramount failed to properly pay crew members on numerous production efforts, including “Top Gun,” “Fatal Attraction” and “Snake Eyes”, “Dungeons & Dragons", "Lost City” and other productions. O'Cain worked on the production of Paramount's show "The Offer" in January 2022 and on the motion picture "Wild Chickens" for one day in October 2021. O’Cain’s lawsuit states that crew members were not reimbursed for their cell phone expenses, were not paid wages on time, nor provided “timely, uninterrupted meal periods and rest breaks,” in violation of California law.
Failure to Pay on Time
O’Cain says that after he finished working on "The Offer," Paramount delayed paying his wages for almost a month. He alleges that other crew members had a similar experience, and some didn’t receive their total salaries. Crew members on "Wild Chickens" had their paychecks delayed and were not paid wages owed for missed meal periods and rest breaks.
“By failing to pay Plaintiff and Class Members all wages when due at termination, Plaintiff and Class Members are entitled to continuing wages pursuant to section 203 of the California labor code,” stipulates the class action. The penalty for late final paychecks is equal to the employee’s daily wage for each day the final paycheck goes unpaid, up to 30 days. O’Cain is seeking to represent a class of individuals who were paid wages for services provided for Paramount in the production of motion pictures in California in the past three years, and another class of similarly situated individuals who were paid within approximately the past four years.
According to Law360, O’Cain’s lawsuit, filed under PAGA, also accuses Paramount not only of failing to pay workers on time – crew members were also required to be on call at all times, including during meal and rest breaks. "As a result of defendants' unfair and unlawful business practices, defendants have reaped unfair and illegal profits during the relevant time period herein at the expense of plaintiff and the … class members and members of the public," O'Cain claims. "Defendants should be made to disgorge its ill-gotten gains and to restore them to plaintiff and the … class members."
Walkie Talkies
According to the lawsuit, “Plaintiff and Class Members were required to keep their walkie talkie radios and cell phones with them at all times, including during meal and rest breaks. Some breaks were simply not provided at all. This policy precluded Defendants from providing Plaintiff and others the ability to enjoy legally compliant meal and rest breaks as required by California law.” O'Cain said that Paramount also violated California labor law by not providing crew members with accurate wage statements that reflected wages owed due to the company's failure to provide compliant rest breaks.
The case is Timothy O'Cain v. Paramount Pictures Corporation et al., case number 24STCV12693, in the Superior Court of the State of California for the County of Los Angeles.
Paramount Overtime Settlement
This isn’t the first time that Paramount has been sued for unpaid overtime violations. Back in 2016, Paramount Pictures and Leonardo DiCaprio’s Red Granite Pictures settled an overtime class action lawsuit filed by former production assistants claiming the companies failed to pay workers for all their due wages and forced them to work under harsh conditions. The class action lawsuit alleged that the plaintiffs worked as many as 60 to 100 hours per week on closed or sensitive sets and they were often forced to relieve themselves in plastic bottles and buckets in their cars to keep up with the defendant’s employment demands. The companies settled for $700,000, which compensated approximately 400 class members for the cost of litigating the unpaid overtime claim, back pay with interest, unpaid overtime, and other damages.