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Justice Circle If you worked at the Solar Farm on Roslin Farm Road in Hope Mills, NC in 2015 or 2016, you could get a payment from a class action settlement.
A proposed settlement has been reached in a class action lawsuit filed against Alpha Technologies Services, Inc, East Carolina Commercial Services, LLC, Solar Guys, Inc., Cesar Mendoza and Jorge Ramos (the “Defendants”), by individuals who worked in the construction of the solar panel facility known as IS46 in Hope Mills, NC.
If you are part of the proposed settlement class, you may get in touch with the attorneys representing the class to ensure you receive your payment, or you can exclude yourself from the settlement, or object to it. The United States District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina authorized this notice. Before any money is paid, the Court will hold a hearing to decide whether to approve the settlement.
- Learn more about the case
- Were you a worker at this facility? Read the long form and short legal notices here.
Background
Last year, the NC Justice Center and co-counsel Dhamian Blue of Blue, LLP, filed a class and collective action lawsuit on behalf of individuals who were hired to build Innovative Solar 46, a solar farm in Hope Mills, North Carolina, in 2015-2016. The workers assert that employers misclassified them as independent contractors.
Misclassification is the practice of treating workers as contractors when they should be employees.
Construction on the solar farm began in August 2015 and the solar farm was operational by the end of 2016. Several hundred workers were hired to build the solar facility, which is described as the single largest solar farm ever built east of the Mississippi River.
The former employees filed their case, Martinez v. Alpha Technologies Services, in the Eastern District of North Carolina. It alleges that hundreds of workers hired to perform manual labor in the construction of the Hope Mills solar farm were not paid overtime despite regularly working more than 40 hours per week. It also alleges that the workers had 5 percent of their pay illegally deducted each week to cover the cost of workers’ compensation insurance.
The Defendants are East Carolina Commercial Services, Solar Guys, Cesar Mendoza, Jorge Ramos, and Alpha Technologies Services. According to the suit, the general contractor at the start of construction, Alpha Technologies Services from Washington State, hired Virginia-based Solar Guys, to supply all of the labor for the project. Solar Guys then subcontracted with newly formed East Carolina Commercial Services, to also provide labor.