Commentary
I once paid a woman roughly $100,000 because she stepped on an olive on my restaurant patio, injured her kneecap, and claimed that she could no longer perform her “wifely duties.” Yes, those were her words. The olives had fallen from a tree, and we had swept the patio multiple times that day. I thought the lawsuit was ridiculous, but it was cheaper to settle than fight.
At a 10 percent profit margin, a restaurant must sell $1 million worth of food to make $100,000. That’s a lot of meals cooked, tables served, and dishes washed because someone stepped on an olive.
Over 15 years of operating restaurants in California, I spent millions dealing with lawsuits, insurance, lawyers, and regulatory penalties. Across multiple restaurants, I was paying more than $1 million annually just for insurance. Several insurers I used eventually stopped writing policies in California.
I also encountered what seemed like an entire business model built around Americans with Disabilities Act lawsuits. One man sued my restaurant and two others on the same block over wheelchair accessibility, identifying seating or bathroom measurements that were off by inches. We learned he had filed more than 50 similar cases across Los Angeles.
Other restaurant owners told us that he didn’t ordinarily use a wheelchair. We looked up his house on Google Earth and saw stairs at both entrances. That didn’t prove anything about his disability, but it raised questions. We settled anyway. Fighting would have cost more.
I noticed a pattern over those 15 years. A major corporation would get sued, and suddenly, attorneys seemed to start bringing similar claims against smaller businesses. Once a legal theory demonstrated it could produce settlements, other businesses became targets.
One of the strangest examples was California’s Private Attorneys General Act (PAGA). I hadn’t heard of it until an employee named Melissa threatened to use it against me.
We paid for a scheduling app called HotSchedules so employees wouldn’t have to drive to the restaurant to check a schedule posted on the wall. They could trade shifts or respond when someone needed coverage.
Melissa alleged that receiving scheduling messages at home constituted unpaid work. She also alleged that we were using her phone’s data without permission.
People spend hours scrolling through their phones, but opening a scheduling app was suddenly grounds for compensation? Wouldn’t driving to the restaurant, photographing the schedule, and driving home take considerably longer? Nobody would be paid for that either.
We eventually added warnings explaining that employees weren’t being paid to use the app outside working hours and could wait until arriving at work to open it.
But Melissa’s allegations went further.
Several servers, including Pablo, would clock out for their meal breaks, eat at the bar, and occasionally get up to check on their tables. They wanted to earn good tips. Nobody was forcing them to work through lunch.
Melissa took her breaks. Yet under California’s old PAGA rules, she could threaten claims involving other employees’ breaks.
PAGA allows qualifying employees to pursue labor-law penalties on behalf of California and other employees without forming a traditional class action. Before the 2024 reforms, experiencing one qualifying violation could generally allow someone to pursue other alleged violations affecting coworkers.
California narrowed that rule, but let’s not pretend that PAGA disappeared. One employee can still bring a representative action involving numerous employees without class certification. The state’s share of recovered PAGA civil penalties dropped to 65 percent from 75 percent. Nearly two-thirds still go to California, while attorneys can recover fees separately.
An elected attorney general answers to voters. A private attorney exercising the state’s enforcement power doesn’t face that same democratic accountability.
I refused to settle because I didn’t believe we had done anything wrong. Eventually, my attorney told me I had spent more than $35,000 defending myself. We settled for approximately $30,000 before a lawsuit was filed.
I wasn’t found guilty. I simply couldn’t afford to keep arguing.
And PAGA wasn’t my only experience.
I was fined approximately $13,000 after reporting an employee’s hospitalization about 17 or 18 hours later. Our workers’ compensation guidance states 24 hours. California’s deadline was shorter. I challenged the penalty, explaining that I had reported in good faith. I still paid.
After years of dealing with California regulators, I came to believe that the state makes ordinary parts of operating a business illegal so it can fine you for doing them. The rules become so numerous and complicated that even someone trying to comply can violate something.
To me, it’s a form of taxation without representation. Yes, legislators are elected, but when unelected regulators interpret rules, impose penalties, and leave business owners spending thousands of dollars defending themselves, how much meaningful representation do we have?
At some point, regulation stops feeling like protection and starts feeling like revenue collection.
Now, contrast this with the people producing our food.
According to USDA data, roughly 85 percent of American farm households receive income from outside the farm. Many farmers work full-time jobs elsewhere before coming home to another 40 or 50 hours of farming.
Who protects those people?
My husband gets up before dawn and often works until midnight. He gets injured doing physical work, wraps himself up, sometimes visits the chiropractor, and gets back to work. The animals don’t care if he’s tired. The waterlines don’t care if he’s sick. Nobody guarantees him overtime, paid breaks, or a paycheck.
And I’m not asking anyone to.
But I can’t help comparing his reality with an employee receiving a scheduling notification at home and having access to a legal mechanism that ultimately cost my business more than $65,000.
I think something deeper is happening to us. We’re becoming weaker and more transactional. We have convinced ourselves that life should fit into neat little boxes, every break scheduled, every inconvenience compensated, every accident somebody’s fault.
Sometimes a restaurant gets slammed, and someone takes a break late. Sometimes a farmer works 16 hours because a cow is calving. Sometimes an olive falls onto a patio that’s already been swept three times.
These aren’t necessarily examples of exploitation or negligence. Sometimes they’re simply life.
Here’s the irony. People support these laws, believing that they’re protecting ordinary workers from giant corporations. But giant corporations have legal departments, compliance officers, and resources to spread costs across hundreds of locations. Independent restaurants and small farms don’t.
The more expensive we make it to operate independently, the fewer independent businesses survive. Workers have fewer employers, farmers lose buyers, and communities lose businesses owned by their neighbors.
We think we’re protecting people from corporate power while creating conditions that make corporate power stronger.
I don’t want protection from every risk. I don’t want the government guaranteeing my success. I want the freedom to work, build, take responsibility, and sometimes fail without every imperfect moment becoming an opportunity for someone else to collect money.
We’ve spent decades asking who will protect workers from their employers. Maybe it’s time we ask who will protect the people willing to employ them.
Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
