Late last year, Cal/OSHA implemented Emergency Temporary Standards that imposed dramatic new testing, training, and recordkeeping requirements related to COVID-19 exposure in the workplace. Most controversial of these new requirements was a mandate that employers “continue and maintain an employee’s earnings, seniority, and all other employee rights and benefits” for employees excluded from the workplace under the ETS regulations, unless the employee was unable to work for other reasons (including hospitalization) or the employer could demonstrate that the COVID-19 exposure was not work related. Combined with requirements that even asymptomatic close contacts be excluded for at least 10 days (regardless of a negative test), this new ETS imposed significant pay obligations on employers just as various state and federal COVID-19 paid leave requirements were expiring at the end of 2020.

As noted previously, various business groups challenged portions of the ETS in state court in San Francisco, one of several such lawsuits. But after extensive briefing from the parties (and several interested non-parties), the judge last week issued an order denying a motion to preliminarily enjoin portions of the ETS:

Plaintiff have not shown a likelihood of prevailing on the merits of their claims.  Even if they could do so, the balance of interim harms and the public interest in curbing the spread of COVID-19 and protecting worker and community health way heavily in favor of the continued implementation and enforcement of the ETS Regulations.  With the single exception of restrictions on attendance at religious services, which present unique constitutional considerations, no federal or state court in the country has blocked emergency public health orders intended to curb the spread of COVID-19, and the illness, hospitalization, and deaths that follow in its wake. [Citations] This Court will not be the first.  Lives are at stake.

There is no indication as to whether the plaintiffs will appeal. The case does not end with this denial, but the ruling means the court will allow the ETS regulations to stand while the litigation proceeds. Therefore, employers should continue to follow the ETS regulations and track new updates from Cal/OSHA.