The judgment against the defendant for $1,347,000 in Faigin v. Signature Group Holdings, Inc. should be a good reminder for companies to have well drafted executive agreements. Faigin worked as General Counsel and Chief Legal Officer for Fremont General, a parent corporation. Defendant had various subsidiary companies that Faigin also worked for during his employment. Faigin entered into an employment contract with Fremont General. The agreement set forth that Faigin would be entitled to certain benefits if he was involved in an “involuntary termination.” If he was involuntarily terminated, as defined in the agreement, the company agreed to pay Faigin a lump sum equal to three years of his base salary.

After entering into the agreement with Fremont General, Faigin was appointed to interim President and Chief Executive Officer of FRC, a subsidiary of Fremont General. A short time after assuming these roles, Faigain was replaced at FRC. Faigin argued that his dismissal from his roles at FRC resulted in an involuntary termination under the term of his employment contract, entitling him to three years of his salary which exceeded $400,000 per year.

At trial, FRC argued that the employment agreement entered into with Fremont General did not apply to the situation arising out of Faigin’s employment with FRC because the agreement was only entered into with Fremont General, not FRC. The trial court agreed, and excluded any evidence of the employment agreement between Faigin and Fremont General. However, Faigin presented evidence that FRC created an implied-in-fact employment contract that he would only be terminated for good cause. As the court noted, an implied-in-fact employment contract can be established by showing the following:

The existence and content of such an agreement are determined from the totality of the circumstances, including the employer’s personnel policies and practices, the employee’s length of service, actions and communications by the employer reflecting assurances of continued employment, and practices in the relevant industry. The question whether such an implied-in-fact agreement exists is a factual question for the trier of fact unless the undisputed facts can support only one reasonable conclusion.

An implied-in-fact agreement to terminate only for good cause cannot arise if there is an express writing to the contrary, such as a written acknowledgement that employment is at will or an at-will provision in a written employment agreement. “There cannot be a valid express contract and an implied contract, each embracing the same subject, but requiring different results. [Citations.]”

(Citations omitted). The court stated that because the employment agreement with Fremont General fixed the term of employment at three years and did not provide that Faigin’s employment was at-will, this written agreement is not inconsistent with the jury’s finding of an implied-in-fact agreement existed.

The case shows how careful employers need to be in drafting executive compensation agreements, and especially if the executive is working for different subsidiaries of a parent company.

It is time to start planning for how the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, otherwise known as ObamaCare, will effect your business.  Peterson Milaney Associates, will be hosting a webinar on the new law and what employers need to start planning for now.  The webinar is taking place on Monday, December 3, at 10:00 a.m. 

The webinar is free for readers of the blog.  Registration is here. 

Given the increasing mobility of the workforce, the issue of which state’s laws apply to a traveling employee is becoming more and more common. In Sullivan v. Oracle Corp., the California Supreme Court held that California-based employers must pay non-resident employees working in California according to the California’s overtime laws. That means that a California employer who has employees travel to California to work must pay the employees according to California’s wage and hour laws – not pursuant to the laws from the state that the employee is from. The Court emphasized California’s strong public policies in place to protect the employees.

This holding was again recognized in See’s Candy Shops, Inc. v. Superior Court. The Court in See’s Candy stated, “We agree with [the Plaintiff] that under Sullivan a California employer generally must pay all employees, including nonresident employees working in California, state overtime wages unless the employee is exempt.” While the issue in See’s Candy was whether an employer’s time-keeping rounding policy complied with California law, the case is a good reminder that the analysis of which state’s employment laws apply to employees is simply more than looking up where the employee live.

There is concern about a bill making its way through the Senate that would drastically change individuals’ privacy interest in their internet communications and “cloud” information. The bill, named the Electronic Communications Privacy Act Amendments Act of 2011, originally started out as offering more protection to individuals, but after law enforcement expressed its concerns about the bill, it was rewritten to allow more than 22 governmental agencies to search e-mail, Google Docs files, Facebook posts, and direct messages through Twitter. 

Other than lowering everyone’s privacy rights in this information, why would employers have any concern about the bill? The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) is one of the governmental agencies expressly listed as having the power to search this electronic information without a search warrant. In addition the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) would also have the warrantless subpoena power should the bill pass.  This would give the NLRB and OSHA unprecedented access into a private employer’s e-mails and any other information stored in the cloud. 

Under the bill, anyone who sends email or stores information in the cloud would be given less privacy than if the information was stored on a hard drive kept in the office or home. Many companies, such as Google and Apple, who are touting new cloud services are fighting hard to protect the information individuals store in the cloud because a decrease in privacy of cloud based information would likely reduce the consumer demand for the services.

Further diminishing companies’ and individuals’ privacy rights, there has been an argument which was upheld by a federal district court in Oregon in 2009, that the government does not have to give notice to the individual or company to search e-mails or other electronic information, even when the agency has a search warrant. The court held that the notice requirements under the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA) and the Fourth Amendment is satisfied when the only the internet service provider who is storing the information is served with a search warrant.

The vote on the proposed bill is scheduled for Thursday, November 29, 2012.

In October 2012 the National Labor Relations Board issued an advice memorandum regarding whether an employer’s social media policy violated the National Labor Relations Act (“NLRA”). This memorandum is of importance because the NLRB has issued findings recently that employer’s seemingly neutral social media policies violated employees’ rights under the NLRA. Section 7 of the NLRA provides that employees have the right to self-organize, form, join or assist labor organizations, and generally “engage in other concerted activities.” Section 8 of the NLRA makes it unlawful for an employer “to interfere with, restrain, or coerce employees in the exercise of the rights guaranteed in section 7.” This prohibits applies to all employers, even if the employees are not unionized.

In the memorandum the NLRB sets forth its two step analysis in determining whether a “work rule” “would reasonably tend to chill employees in the exercise of their Section 7 rights.” First, the NLRB examine whether the rule “is clearly unlawful if it explicitly restricts Section 7 protected activities.” Second, the rule is examined to determine if “(1) employees would reasonably construe the language to prohibit Section 7 activity; (2) the rule was promulgated in response to union activity; or (3) the rule has been applied to restrict the exercise of Section 7 rights.” While the Board said that a rule “that could conceivably be read to restrict Section 7 activity” would does not automatically violate the NLRA, but if the rule is ambiguous and contains no limiting language or context to clarify that it does not restrict their Section 7 rights would be in violation.

The case at issue in the memorandum involved Cox Communications. The company had a standard social media policy:

Nothing in Cox’s social media policy is designed to interfere with, restrain, or prevent employee communications regarding wages, hours, or other terms and conditions of employment. Cox Employees have the right to engage in or refrain from such activities. . . .

DO NOT make comments or otherwise communicate about customers, coworkers, supervisors, the Company, or Cox vendors or suppliers in a manner that is vulgar, obscene, threatening, intimidating, harassing, libelous, or discriminatory on the basis of age, race, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, genetic information, disability, national origin, ethnicity, citizenship, marital status, or any other legally recognized protected basis under federal, state, or local laws, regulations, or ordinances. Those communications are disrespectful and unprofessional and will not be tolerated by the Company. . .

DO respect the laws regarding copyrights, trademarks, rights of publicity and other third-party rights. To minimize the risk of a copyright violation, you should provide references to the source(s) of information you use and accurately cite copyrighted works you identify in your online communications. Do not infringe on Cox logos, brand names, taglines, slogans, or other trademarks.

An employee was fired for violating this policy by posting an offensive and derogatory comment on his Google+ account via his cell phone. The company suspended the employee and conducted a further investigation, which revealed that the employee made numerous other posts “containing lewd language which disparaged customers.” The company terminated the employee.

Applying the analysis above to Cox Communication’s social media policy, the NLRB found that the policy did not violate the NLRA. The Board said that the examples of egregious conduct listed in Cox Communication’s policy established a context that “clearly would not be reasonably understood to restrict Section 7 activity.” Also, the policy’s savings clause that specifically set forth that it was not designed to violate any communications employees had the legal right to make, also supported the finding that it did not violate Section 7.

The NLRB memorandum can be read here (PDF). 

In See’s Candy Shops, Inc. v. Superior Court the court addressed whether an employer’s policy of rounding  employee’s time clock entries to the nearest tenth of an hour.  See’s Candy’s policy rounded employees’ time entries either up or down to the nearest tenth of an hour in its Kronos time keeping system. For example, if an employee clocked in at 7:58 a.m., the system rounds the time to 8:00 a.m., and if the employee clocked in at 8:02 a.m., the system rounds down the entry to 8:00 a.m.

Plaintiffs challenged this rounding policy by arguing that this policy prevented employees from receiving all of their wages twice a month as required by California law. The court noted that even though California employers “have long engaged in employee time-rounding, there is no California statue or case law specifically authorizing or prohibiting this practice.” See’s Candy argued that given this lack of clear authority on the issue, courts should adopt the federal standard, which is also used by California’s Division Labor Standards Enforcement (“DLSE”), which allows rounding.

The court agreed that time entry rounding is permissible under California law:

Relying on the DOL rounding standard, we have concluded that the rule in California is that an employer is entitled to use the nearest-tenth rounding policy if the rounding policy is fair and neutral on its face and ‘it is used in such a manner that it will not result, over a period of time, in failure to compensate the employees properly for all the time they have actually worked.’ (29 C.F.R. § 785.48; see DLSE Manual, supra, §§ 47.1, 47.2.)

See’s Candy presented evidence that across all of its employees the rounding policy actually resulted in a total gain of 2,749 hours for the class of employees involved in the litigation. Therefore, the court held that the rounding policy that rounded both up and down from the midpoint of every six minutes did not result in a loss to the employees.

It is important to note the limitation of this holding. This case involved clear evidence, presented in the form of an expert witness, establishing the effect on the total time paid to the employees did not result in a loss to the employees. Also, the rounding policy would round both up and down. Had the policy only rounded in favor of the employer, that would have violating the rule established in this case. Employers utilizing rounding for payroll must still do so with caution. For example, there should be periodic audits to ensure the effect of rounding does not favor the employer over a period of time. The opinion can be read here: See’s Candy Shops, Inc. v. Superior Court.

I had the opportunity to attend an event with Chris Sacca last night.  He is a venture capitalist who has been living part-time in Los Angeles recently. He spoke about how he grew up in the investment scene in Silicon Valley. He got his feet wet in investing when he started day trading law school student loan money. By day trading, he was able to grow his net worth to $12 million. Then the bubble burst and he lost his friends’ and family’s money, and owed $4 million himself. Given that he wanted to be in the investment scene and possibly run a publicly traded company, bankruptcy was not an option. Chris began working as a corporate lawyer in Silicon Valley and worked odd jobs at night to pay back the money he owed (which he was able to negotiate down to a little more than $2 million). When he was laid off as a lawyer, he quickly had to adapt, and realized that no one wanted to work with a young guy working out of his house. He formed the Salinger Group (I use the term “formed” loosely – he just made up the name and thought it sounded good and that people would trust the name). He successfully worked his way through a number of companies, including Google and eventually became a venture capitalist. He now runs Lowercase Capital.

Here are a few points Chris made that stood out from his interview:

  • The startup scene in Los Angeles is alive and well. In fact Chris has raised a fund to invest in companies in Los Angeles.
  • Chris spoke about the sense of entitlement the younger generation has. This has turned him off of seed funding, as the entrepreneurs were insisting on a very high valuation of the company and requiring an investment decision on the spot.
  • Everyone needs to believe in themselves and that everyone has one thing they are good at. Chris encouraged everyone that when they are good at something, to not apologize about it, but still keep in mind that everyone can still use some help every now and then. He described his theory as “bold humility.”
  • Good entrepreneurs recognized they need money, and it is an important aspect of working, but more fundamentally, good entrepreneurs keep working because they like solving problems. That is why he is still working.
  • Successful leaders do not surround themselves with “yes men.” He learned this lesson when he made $12 million day trading. Everyone around him was telling him what a genius he was, and he said he actually started to believe it. Then the market corrected, and he realized that much of the success he had was due to his timing of the market.
  • He buys his trademark cowboy shirts from www.vintagewesternwear.com. 

It was a great event hosted by Zefr, who provided the room, beer and pizza. More about it can be read at PandoDaily. It was great to see the startup scene in Los Angeles alive and well.

Were Silicon Valley companies artificially keeping wages lower by having an agreement not to poach employees from competitors? This issue came to a head in 2010 when the Department of Justice settled an antitrust case with Adobe, Pixar, Google, Apple, Inuit, and Intel. The DOJ alleged that the companies had agreement not to poach each other’s employees, and that these agreements “reduced their ability to compete for high tech workers and interfered with the proper functioning of the price-setting mechanism that otherwise would have prevailed in competition for employees.” In the settlement with the DOJ, the companies agreed to discontinue the use of any agreements that would prevent any company from poaching employees from a competitor.

After knowledge of the DOJ case spread, a group of employees filed a class action lawsuit seeking damages by alleging that the companies violated California’s Cartwright Act and the Unfair Competition Law. The case is currently pending in California’s Federal Northern District Court. The allegations made in the DOJ case and in the class action litigation argue that the companies had a “do not call” list. Under this agreement the companies agreed not to cold call each other’s employees. There have been emails disclosed in the litigation where Steve Jobs emailed Eric Schmidt asking Google to stop its employee from soliciting an Apple employee. When Schmidt informed the Google employees to stop, the Google employees responded that this was inappropriate, and the offender would be fired within the hour.

This litigation shows how valuable a company’s employees are to its productivity and how hard it is to retain employees in competitive industries. It also shows the relatively few methods employers have to retain top talent. Generally speaking, noncompetition agreements are unenforceable in California, and the allegations made in this litigation show that agreements not to poach competitor’s employees can also be challenged as violating anti-trust and unfair competition laws.

As previously written about on this blog, the case PhoneDog v. Kravtiz is one of the first cases in the country to deal with substantive ownership issues arising out of social media accounts used in the workplace. As companies are moving more and more away from traditional marketing and advertising towards the use of social media, it is critical that companies have an agreement with employees about a few key items regarding social media accounts, such as ownership of the social media accounts.

On the other hand, the rise social media has given individuals the ability to create a brand for themselves and establish a large following for their expertise. These individuals are hired by companies not only for their expertise on the subject matter, but also for the large group of followers they developed via social media. The followers the individuals have through Twitter, Facebook or a blog is a valuable advertising and marketing resource for a company that wishes to gain the follower’s attention. Because of this shift from traditional advertising and PR, employers and employees have to be vigilant in approaching this issue given the potentially large value social media contacts can now have in the marketplace. An employee being hired who agrees to use their social media accounts to promote the company’s business should also clearly set out at least a few issues in a written agreement.

For example, a social media agreement between and employer and employee could address at the following issues:

  • Ownership of the employee’s social media accounts that will be used for business purposes. Clearly spell out who owns the accounts (or license to use the accounts).
  • Ownership and use of the company’s social media accounts. Who retains the right to change the passwords? Who retains the right to edit and approve content? What is the process to approve content prior to publishing?
  • Any restrictive terms of use of the employee’s social media accounts during employment. For example, does the employer have the right to edit and review the content prior to publication?
  • What control, if any, the company will have after the termination of the employment relationship over the employee’s or the company’s social media accounts. Is there a time frame after employment that the employee cannot use his or her own social media accounts for competitive business uses? Employers need to be careful here, however, as limiting an employee’s use of their social media accounts may be tantamount to a prohibited non-competition agreement or in violation of other state laws. I expect that this will be another hot area of the law that will be addressed by the courts within the next few years.
  • It may also be useful to set a monetary value on the social media accounts. This is probably easier to negotiate among the parties prior to any dispute over the value should litigation arise later.

My next article, Part II of this series, will address what claims employers and employees would likely use during litigation over social media accounts.

In Muldrow v. Surrex Solutions Corp., the California Court of Appeal upheld a trial court’s determination that the plaintiffs could not maintain a class action for proposed meal period class given the holding by the California Supreme Court in Brinker v. Superior Court (click here for additional information on the Brinker ruling). The appellate court had previously upheld the trial court’s denial of class certification, but the California Supreme Court granted review of the case pending its decision in Brinker. Once Brinker was decided, the Supreme Court transferred the case back to the appellate court for a decision applying the new analysis set forth in Brinker.

In Muldrow, the appellate court found that the trial court properly denied class certification for the meal break class.  It stated, “In Brinker, the Supreme Court held that an employer need only provide for meal periods, and need not ensure that employees take such breaks.”

In support of its conclusion that the trial court properly denied class certification as to the meal break claims, the court quoted the following language from the Brinker decision:

An employer’s duty with respect to meal breaks…is an obligation to provide a meal period to its employees. The employer satisfies this obligation if it relieves its employees of all duty, relinquishes control over their activities and permits them a reasonable opportunity to take an uninterrupted 30-minute break, and does not impede or discourage them from doing so.

Plaintiffs argued that they should now be able to present evidence that the employees were “discouraged” from taking meal breaks given the Brinker decision. The appellate court rejected this request as this was the first time plaintiffs raised the issue, and there were a number of cases that plaintiffs could have relied upon for this theory prior to the Brinker decision.