Too often, plaintiffs’ lawyers file thin, borderline frivolous employment claims hoping for a quick nuisance-value settlement. The math is simple: it’s cheaper for an employer to pay a few thousand dollars to make a case disappear than to spend tens (or hundreds) of thousands defending it.
And yes, sometimes that works. The business case often just makes sense for businesses.
But not always. Plenty of employers—especially those who believe they’ve done nothing wrong—will dig in and fight. Hard.
That’s where the real disservice to the employee begins.
Even on a contingency fee (“you don’t pay unless you win”), litigation isn’t free. Filing fees. Deposition transcripts. Expert costs. E-discovery. Those expenses add up, and they don’t magically disappear just because the claim is weak. And if the employer wins on summary judgment or at trial, it can seek to recover its costs from the plaintiff—along with attorneys’ fees where a statute or agreement allows.
Moreover, a lawsuit can poke a sleeping bear. An employer that might have shrugged and moved on suddenly has a reason to scrutinize everything—including an unemployment claim. If the employer contests and wins, the employee may be on the hook to repay benefits already received. For a low-wage worker living paycheck to paycheck, that clawback can be financially devastating.
All for a case that never had real merit to begin with.
Everyone deserves their day in court. But a day in court means something. It’s not a bargaining chip. It’s not a shakedown dressed up in legal briefs. When lawyers file cases they know are weak, it’s extortion with a filing stamp on it.
So, to business owners: stop reflexively writing the nuisance check. When you settle a bad case, you don’t just pay to make one problem go away—you advertise that the strategy works. Fight the ones that deserve to be fought. Make the calculus harder.
Because the best way to discourage this practice is to make sure the math stops working.
