For the second year in a row, California has avoided being “the worst in the nation,” but still managed to secure the unenviable third position on the American Tort Reform Foundation’s (“ATRF”) Annual Judicial Hellholes List.

The ATRF characterizes California as the “plaintiffs’ bar’s laboratory for finding new ways to expand liability,” highlighting several key judicial and legislative trends contributing to each Californian paying an

We invite you to review our newly-posted May 2023 California Employment Law Notes, a comprehensive review of the latest and most significant developments in California employment law. The highlights include:

Militello v. VFARM 1509, 89 Cal. App. 5th 602 (2023)

Shauneen Militello brought a 22-count complaint against fellow co-owners of a cannabis manufacturing and distribution company, including Ann Lawrence.  Lawrence moved to disqualify Militello’s counsel, arguing that Militello had improperly provided to her counsel private emails between Lawrence and her husband that were sent on the company’s email network, which Militello’s attorney attempted to use

Recently, the Ohio Supreme Court ruled that employees had no claim for invasion of privacy when a drug-testing facility “directly observed” them as they provided a urine sample.  Proskauer’s Anthony Oncidi joins Bloomberg Law podcast host June Grasso to discuss the ruling’s significance and what it means for employers.

Listen to the podcast here.

In an effort to give consumers more control over the data businesses collect from and about them, the California legislature passed the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) in 2018 (and amended it a few months later). The CCPA gives consumers the right to know about and have deleted the data businesses have gathered about them, among other rights. However, the CCPA applies to

 ZL Technologies, Inc. v. Does 1-7, 13 Cal. App. 5th 603 (2017)

ZL Technologies brought suit, alleging libel per se and online impersonation, against seven anonymous individuals who represented themselves as current or former ZL employees and who posted critical reviews of ZL’s management and work environment on Glassdoor (a website where workers can post “reviews” of their employers). ZL served a subpoena on

A federal court has granted IMDb’s request for a preliminary injunction to allow the entertainment website to keep actors’ ages in their online profiles – despite the enactment of a statute in California prohibiting same.

The lawsuit, IMDb.com, Inc. v. Becerra (Case No. 16-cv-06535-VC) was filed in response to the passage of A.B. 1687, which required IMDb.comPro and other commercial online entertainment employment service

This bill prohibits a commercial online entertainment employment service provider that enters into a contractual agreement to provide specified employment services to an individual paid subscriber from publishing information about the subscriber’s age in an online profile of the subscriber and would require the provider, within five days, to remove from public view in an online profile of the subscriber certain information regarding the subscriber’s

On September 24, 2016, California Gov. Jerry Brown signed A.B. 1687 – a measure aimed at preventing age discrimination against film, television, and other professionals in the entertainment industry whose ages could be viewed by casting directors and other potential employers.  As a result of this bill, industry professionals whose profiles are listed on commercial online entertainment employment service providers (IMDb.comPro and similar

Jon Davler, Inc. v. Arch Ins. Co., 229 Cal. App. 4th 1025 (2014)

After one of the owners of Jon Davler, Inc. (Christina Yang) found a used sanitary napkin in the women’s bathroom and blood around the toilet seat, she started yelling at the employees that they were “dirty” and demanded to know which of them was on her menstrual period. When the employees