Crystal Cook Leftridge

Crystal Cook Leftridge advocates for workers who have been taken advantage of by their employers. She represents individuals in a broad range of wage and hour litigation, including allegations of unpaid overtime, off-the-clock work, misclassification, and gender wage discrimination.

One hallmark of her practice was Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) litigation against DIRECTV. The litigation stemmed from claims of minimum wage, overtime and misclassification violations; it ultimately involved more than 3,000 plaintiffs in two collective actions and hundreds of individual cases filed nationwide. Crystal managed more than 600 depositions and endless discovery in the DIRECTV disputes, which resolved in a series of favorable settlements.

Although Crystal focuses primarily on wage and hour litigation, she also brings her litigation experience – and passion for justice – to Stueve Siegel Hanson’s Dangerous Prescription Drugs Practice. She has handled large-scale class action lawsuits and mass tort actions involving Taxotere, Risperdal and other pharmaceutical products. Recently she has been heavily involved in a case where she and a team of attorneys are representing service members and veterans who suffered hearing loss following the use of allegedly defective earplugs that company 3M knowingly distributed to the military.

Crystal brings strong communication and organization skills to every case – skills she honed before law school as an Executive Assistant in the White House. During her two years at the White House, Crystal’s duties included correspondence, curation and event planning; she credits her experience working with heads of state for her ability to be unflappable even in the most high-stakes or high-stress litigation.

Crystal frequently presents on legal career options to students in her hometown of Hays, Kansas, and her alma mater schools, Fort Hays State University and the University of Kansas School of Law. Crystal is also an adjunct professor at Fort Hays State University where she teaches an online upper-level course of American Civil Liberties.  She is a mentee in the Association of Women Lawyers’ Denise Henning Connections program; a graduate of the Kansas City Metropolitan Bar Association Leadership Academy; and a tutor for grade school students through Lawyers Encouraging Academic Performance.

Experience

Wage and Hour –

Travel Nurse Litigation – Crystal is on the team challenging habitual breach of contract and wage and hour violations by travel nursing agencies.  The team is holding travel nursing agencies accountable for mid-contract pay rate changes and a variety of wage and hour issues (both federal and state), including failure to include weekly stipends and other wages in the regular rate of pay for overtime. Crystal works closely with our travel nurse clients as we investigate violations against multiple travel nurse agencies across the country.

DIRECTV – Crystal is the case manager for numerous of the individual cases filed on behalf of nearly 400 plaintiffs in over 35 federal courts across the country (including Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin). The firm is representing these individuals in their FLSA claims including minimum wage, overtime, and misclassification violations against DIRECTV, DirectSat USA, LLC, MasTec North America, and Multiband Corp.

Arndt et al. v. DIRECTV, Inc.- Crystal is a member of the firm's team pursuing this FLSA collective action in Arbitration against DIRECTV for failure to pay W-2 installation technicians for the time they spent completing mandatory tasks before, after, and during their work day, as well as miscalculating their overtime pay.

Prescription Drug and Defective Device Litigation –

Crystal is on the firm’s legal team representing clients in their legal claims against pharmaceutical companies and manufacturing companies.  Crystal plays an integral role in managing our thousands of individual clients through the intake, vetting, discovery, and settlement process.  

Kimberly-Clark (ND TX) Crystal helps to oversee the complex case management of the class action and individual personal injury claims against Kimberly-Clark on behalf of consumers of the recalled Cottonelle flushable wipes.  The recall involved a bacteria detected in the Cottonelle products leading to both economic losses and personal injury claims on behalf of consumers across the country and in Canada.

3M Combat Earplugs Multidistrict Litigation (ND Fla.) Crystal also manages our service-member clients in the 3M Combat Earplugs Multidistrict Litigation.  We represent service members from across the country who wore the 3M Combat earplugs and then suffered from hearing loss and tinnitus. 

Additionally, Crystal works on the litigation teams representing individuals that were prescribed Testosterone Replacement Therapy, Proton Pump Inhibitors, and Taxotere, a breast cancer drug.

Data Breach –

Marriott Data Breach Litigation (D. Maryland) Crystal works on our litigation team representing consumers in the multi-district litigation against Marriott and Starwood Hotels following a four-year long data breach compromising 383 million guest records.

In Re: The Home Depot, Inc. Customer Data Security Breach Litigation (N.D. Georgia) (Data Breach Litigation) – Crystal is a member of the leadership group appointed to represent consumers in multi-district litigation against The Home Depot, Inc. following a massive data breach that compromised the payment card data of 40 million U.S. customers and e-mail address of 52-53 million U.S. customers. In March 2016, the Court preliminarily approved a settlement creating a $13 million cash fund for customers who suffered out-of-pocket losses, unreimbursed charges, or time spent remedying issues related to the Home Depot data breach. Home Depot also agreed to fund 18 months of identity theft monitoring services for customers who had their payment card data compromised, and significantly upgrade its data security practices.

In Re: Target Consumer Data Security Breach Litigation (D. Minnesota 2015) (Data Breach Litigation) – Crystal was a member of the leadership team appointed to represent a class of consumers in multi-district litigation against Target Corp. following the announcement that hackers had stolen the personal and financial information of millions of Target customers. In November 2015, the district court approved final settlement providing for monetary relief of $10 million to consumers nationwide and injunctive relief requiring Target to significantly improve its data security practices. The settlement was recognized by Missouri Lawyers Weekly as one of the largest out-of-state settlements in 2015.

PUBLICATIONS

Contributing author, Transportation Review on School Bus Safety, The National Conference of State Legislatures

Honors & Recognitions

Missouri Lawyers Media Women's Justice Awards, Litigation Practitioner Award – 2022

Kansas/Missouri Super Lawyers "Rising Star" – 2019-2022

CALI Awards of Excellence for the Top Grade in Construction Law

Community & Professional

• Association for Women Lawyers (AWL) – Board of Directors (2023); Golf Tournament Committee 2018-present
• American Association of Justice and Women’s Trial Lawyer Caucus – Member
• KCMBA - Member; Federal Courts Advocates Section; Bar Leadership Academy – Class of 2017
• KCMBF Military Matters –Committee Member 2020-2022; 5K Planning Committee 2019-2022
• AWL Denise Henning Connections – Mentee, Class of 2018
• AWLF - 2020 Service Project Committee
• LEAP – Since 2014, when she’s not assisting clients, Crystal tutors at Operation Breakthrough, a large nonprofit daycare for the working poor in Kansas City, as part of Lawyers Encouraging Academic Performance. She helps students excel in core education areas and serves as a role model to young children who benefit from the experience of positive role models.
• LAKC – Member
• Missouri Bar – Member
• Kansas Bar – Member