The U.S. Supreme Court ruled today in Epic Systems Corp. v. Lewis, that employment arbitration agreements that bar class actions are enforceable. The vote was 5 to 4 in upholding the use of arbitration agreements in the workplace.
The plaintiff in the case argued that employees could not waive their rights in an agreement
Chipotle had an $8 million verdict against it in a California court last week for a wrongful termination claim. The verdict is a surprising huge amount and it should be a clear warning to employers about how important it is to document employee conduct, and then store and be able to access that evidence
On May 8, 2018, the court in Ibarra v. Wells Fargo Bank entered an order awarding Plaintiffs who filed a class action against the bank $97.2 million for rest break violations. The original complaint alleged various wage and hour violations, and after the parties filed cross motions for summary judgment, all but the rest
The California Supreme Court issued a monumental ruling this week regarding the test used in determining whether a worker can be classified as an independent contractor. In the case, Dynamex Operations West, Inc. v. Superior Court, the plaintiff brought a class action complaint alleging five causes of action arising from Dynamex’s alleged misclassification of
The California Fair Employment and Housing Act (FEHA) requires employers to provide a reasonable accommodation for an individual with a disability to perform the essential functions of the job unless it would cause an undue hardship on the employer. Common reasonable accommodations include changing job duties for the position, allowing a leave of absence for
I just updated my Facebook settings to prohibit the software company from conducting facial recognition scans on my photos today due to a notification from Facebook that its software would be analyzing my likeness to automatically recognize me in photos posted on Facebook. This was a coincidence because today I spoke at the American Bar
As I wrote about recently, on March 23, 2018, the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2018 signed by President Trump changed federal law on the issue of tip pools and allows employers to share tips with back of the house employees. In connection with the new law, the Department of Labor issued a memorandum this week
Clients come to my firm often frustrated by California employment laws and their complexity, the raising costs of doing business in California (such as the higher minimum wage), and the legal system in general. I have to agree that California poses one of the most difficult business environments businesses have to operate within, but I
In a huge development in the last couple of weeks, a change in federal law now permits California employers to include back of the house employees in tip pools. This week’s post is an update and a general discussion about issues facing restaurants, hotels, and other industries where tipping and gratuities are left for
I recently read an article from the Harvard Business Review published in 1981, Managing Human Resources, by William Skinner. The article raised great points about the lack of respect human resource departments receive in companies at the time. The article is as timely as when it was published nearly 40 years ago. Skinner’s article