Good Guard Security Lawsuit: Wage, Harassment, and Shooting Cases

Good Guard Security, Inc., a Chatsworth, California private security company, has been named as a defendant in a Good Guard Security lawsuit on several fronts since 2022: a class and representative wage-and-hour action alleging worker misclassification, a sexual harassment and retaliation suit, an appeal that the company itself dismissed, and a wrongful death case tied to a fatal shooting at a college campus by one of its guards.¹²

The Watley Wage-and-Hour Class Action

The largest case against the company is Michele Watley v. Good Guard Security, Inc., et al., filed July 11, 2023, in Los Angeles County Superior Court. Three named plaintiffs — Michele Watley, Darlene Villela, and Rodrigo Balderas — sued on behalf of a proposed class of similarly situated workers. The complaint named the company along with individual defendants Halmand Tabibzada and Shawn Helmandi, the company’s co-founders.¹³

The plaintiffs alleged that in the four years before filing, the defendants had systematically misclassified employees as independent contractors and violated a range of California Labor Code provisions. The specific allegations included:

Failure to pay minimum and overtime wages.
Failure to provide compliant meal and rest periods.
Failure to reimburse necessary business expenses.
Failure to provide accurately itemized wage statements.
Failure to timely pay final wages when workers left the company.
Issuance of paychecks with insufficient funds.

The suit brought claims under multiple Labor Code sections and the Private Attorneys General Act, seeking unpaid wages, expense reimbursement, liquidated damages, penalties, and injunctive relief.¹

Litigation was contentious. Tabibzada reportedly failed to respond to discovery, and a May 2025 tentative ruling suggested the plaintiff file motions to compel. The case ended in dismissal: on April 6, 2026, the court signed and filed the plaintiffs’ request for dismissal of the class and representative action, with notice of entry of judgment filed the next day. Publicly available records do not indicate whether the dismissal followed a settlement or another resolution.¹

The Dudley Sexual Harassment and Retaliation Suit

A separate employment case, Janelle Dudley v. Good Guard Security, Inc., et al., was filed October 1, 2024, in Los Angeles County Superior Court. It names the company and an individual defendant, Stone Acevedo.⁴

According to a May 2026 court ruling, Dudley alleges Acevedo sexually harassed her during her employment, that Good Guard Security failed to prevent the harassment, that the company retaliated against her, and that she was wrongfully terminated. At a May 11, 2026 hearing, the court took up Dudley’s motion for sanctions, in which she argued the company had failed to provide adequate discovery responses and had not complied with a December 2025 order requiring supplemental responses. The case remains pending.⁵

The Hillman Appeal

Hillman v. Good Guard Security, Inc. began in Los Angeles County Superior Court under case number 22STCV01775. Good Guard Security appealed to the California Court of Appeal, Second Appellate District, on August 1, 2025, then filed a request for dismissal on February 19, 2026. The court dismissed the appeal six days later and issued a remittitur. The underlying trial court claims are not detailed in publicly available appellate records.⁶

The Spartan College Shooting Lawsuit

Good Guard Security is also a defendant in a wrongful death lawsuit stemming from a May 2, 2025 shooting at Spartan College of Aeronautics and Technology. Tywana Williams filed suit on August 19, 2025, after the fatal shooting of her daughter, Dr. Cameisha Clark, the college’s Dean of Students. The gunman was Jesse Figueroa, a campus security guard.²

The complaint alleges the security company failed to conduct basic background checks on Figueroa, whose criminal history included multiple robbery counts, and failed to flag that his security guard license had expired roughly 14 years before the shooting. Good Guard Security is named alongside Spartan College, its parent company Spartan Education Group LLC, American Guard Services, and Figueroa. In March 2026, Judge Michael Small dismissed Spartan College from the lawsuit, ruling those claims belonged in a workers’ compensation forum. The case continues against the remaining defendants, with a case management conference set for September 16, 2026.⁷

Why California’s Security Industry Sees These Wage Cases

The claims in the Watley class action track a pattern of wage-and-hour litigation across California’s private security sector. Under state law, nonexempt employees are generally entitled to a 30-minute off-duty meal break by the end of the fifth hour of work and a paid 10-minute rest break for every four hours worked. Employers who fail to provide these breaks owe an additional hour of pay for each violation.

Whether guards can truly be relieved of duty during breaks has driven major cases. In 2016, the California Supreme Court held in Augustus v. ABM Security Services, Inc. that requiring guards to remain on call during rest breaks amounted to work and violated state law, reinstating a $90 million judgment. A separate class action against Wackenhut Corporation (later G4S Secure Solutions) resulted in a settlement of up to $130 million for roughly 13,500 officers on similar on-duty break claims.

The California Legislature responded with Assembly Bill 1512 in 2020, creating a narrow carveout for the security industry. The law lets employers require certain guards to stay on premises, remain on call, and carry communication devices during rest breaks, but only if the workers are covered by a collective bargaining agreement meeting specific requirements, including a wage floor at least one dollar above the state minimum wage and binding arbitration for break disputes. If a break is interrupted, the employer must allow the guard to restart it as soon as practicable, and any failure to provide an uninterrupted break triggers the standard one-hour penalty payment. AB 1512 is set to expire on January 1, 2027, and does not apply to cases filed before January 1, 2021. Guards without a qualifying union contract remain covered by the stricter Augustus rule.⁸

1
UniCourt. Michele Watley vs Good Guard Security Inc
2
Our Weekly. School Says Claims Involving Slain Dean Belong in Workers Comp Arena
3
San Diego Housing Commission. Award of Contract With Good Guard Security
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Docket Alarm. Janelle Dudley vs Good Guard Security Inc
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Trellis Law. Janelle Dudley vs Good Guard Security Inc Ruling
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UniCourt. Hillman v Good Guard Security Inc
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2 Urban Girls. Inglewood College Dismissed From Suit Involving Deans Death
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LegiScan. California AB 1512