The California Court of Appeal dealt another blow to arbitration, just months after we reported the last such decision here.
This time, the Court ruled that the federal Ending Forced Arbitration of Sexual Assault and Sexual Harassment Act (“EFAA”) overrides state law—even in cases in which the employee has signed an arbitration agreement that explicitly invokes state law favoring arbitration.
Kristin Casey, a former
California continues to police artificial intelligence (“AI”) in the workplace. Following proposed rulemaking on the use of AI for significant employment decisions, as we reported here, Assemblymember Isaac Bryan introduced Assembly Bill 1221 (“AB 1221”) this legislative session. The bill aims to regulate workplace surveillance tools, including AI, and use of employee data derived therefrom. Applicable to employers of all sizes, AB 1221 could
On April 23, 2025, the White House issued an Executive Order (“EO”) entitled “Restoring Equality of Opportunity and Meritocracy,” which aims to “eliminate the use of disparate-impact liability in all contexts to the maximum degree possible.”
First recognized under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (“Title VII”) by the U.S. Supreme Court in Griggs v. Duke Power Co. (1971) and codified as
According to the Los Angeles Times, a retiring “prison supervising dentist” became a millionaire overnight when the state paid him $1.2 million for unused vacation benefits that he had been accruing for decades. This mammoth payout represents just a drop in the bucket considering the more than $5.6 billion in unfunded liability the state has amassed for vacation and other leave benefits owed to
As we reported here, a split in authority has developed in the California Court of Appeal regarding what to do when an employer moves to compel arbitration of a Private Attorneys General Act (PAGA) that is “headless”—that is, a claim seeking penalties on behalf of all allegedly aggrieved employees except the named plaintiff. (This is the latest trick the plaintiff’s bar has come up
On April 7, 2025, the California Court of Appeal reversed a whopping $10 million verdict in favor of an employee in a sexual harassment case due to the trial judge’s improper evidentiary rulings and inappropriate comments during the post-judgment phase of trial. Odom v. Los Angeles Cmty. Coll. Dist., No. B327997, 2025 WL 1021951, at *1 (Cal. Ct. App. Apr. 7, 2025).
Sabrena Odom
As we have reported time and again, California courts have applied extra scrutiny to employee arbitration agreements in recent years, and have not hesitated to deny arbitration where there is a reasonable basis for doing so. This trend demands that employers be vigilant and update arbitration agreements when developments in the law implicate them. In the recent case of Ford v. The Silver F,
Although the threat of COVID-19 (remember that?) seems to have diminished considerably over the past five years, once upon a time in Hollywood many production companies (along with other employers) required employees to be vaccinated upon pain of losing their job.
In early 2022, Apple Studios LLC conditionally offered actor Brent Sexton the role of U.S. President Andrew Johnson in its production of Manhunt
Originally published in Law360: “6 Reasons Why Arbitration Offers Equitable Resolutions”
On the 100th anniversary of the Federal Arbitration Act, it is worth recalling that the law was enacted in 1925 in response to what the U.S. Supreme Court later called, in its 2011 opinion in AT&T Mobility v. Concepcion, “widespread judicial hostility” to arbitration.[1]
A century later, arbitration is still controversial, and remains
On February 26, 2025, in Parra Rodriguez v. Packers Sanitation, Inc., the California Court of Appeal (Fourth Appellate District) issued the latest published decision addressing the practice of filing so-called “headless” Private Attorneys General Act (PAGA) claims. In such cases, the plaintiff seeks civil penalties for all allegedly aggrieved employees except themself. In the wake of Viking River Cruises, Inc. v. Moriana, 596