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 annual “tort tax” of $2,120 – the third highest in the nation.  Highlights include:

  • The California Supreme Court’s opinions “opening the floodgate” for even more Private Attorneys General Act (PAGA) claims being litigated in court, the vast bulk of the proceeds from which go to the plaintiffs’ lawyers;
  • The California Privacy Rights Act of 2020 (which became effective on January 1, 2023) coupled with Attorney General Rob Bonta’s announcement that his office would be doing “an investigative sweep of all large employers in the state to ensure compliance with the Act”;
  • The California courts and legislature’s unrelenting attack on employment arbitration agreements, including SB 365, which ends the automatic pause on trial court proceedings pending an appeal of whether arbitration should have been compelled; and
  • Ongoing battles over classification of workers as independent contractors or employees surrounding the interpretation of Assembly Bill 5 (which all but invalidated most independent contractor arrangements) and the constitutionality of Proposition 22, exempting Uber/Lyft drivers and other gig economy workers from AB 5.

For those keeping track at home, according to the ATRF, California finishes behind Georgia and Pennsylvania (tied for first) and Cook County, Illinois.

Read the ATRF’s full report here.

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Photo of Tony Oncidi Tony Oncidi

Anthony J. Oncidi is the co-chair of the Labor & Employment Law Department and heads the West Coast Labor & Employment group in the firm’s Los Angeles office.

Tony represents employers and management in all aspects of labor relations and employment law, including…

Anthony J. Oncidi is the co-chair of the Labor & Employment Law Department and heads the West Coast Labor & Employment group in the firm’s Los Angeles office.

Tony represents employers and management in all aspects of labor relations and employment law, including litigation and preventive counseling, wage and hour matters, including class actions, wrongful termination, employee discipline, Title VII and the California Fair Employment and Housing Act, executive employment contract disputes, sexual harassment training and investigations, workplace violence, drug testing and privacy issues, Sarbanes-Oxley claims and employee raiding and trade secret protection. A substantial portion of Tony’s practice involves the defense of employers in large class actions, employment discrimination, harassment and wrongful termination litigation in state and federal court as well as arbitration proceedings, including FINRA matters.

Tony is recognized as a leading lawyer by such highly respected publications and organizations as the Los Angeles Daily JournalThe Hollywood Reporter, and Chambers USA, which gives him the highest possible rating (“Band 1”) for Labor & Employment.  According to Chambers USA, clients say Tony is “brilliant at what he does… He is even keeled, has a high emotional IQ, is a great legal writer and orator, and never gives up.” Other clients report:  “Tony has an outstanding reputation” and he is “smart, cost effective and appropriately aggressive.” Tony is hailed as “outstanding,” particularly for his “ability to merge top-shelf lawyerly advice with pragmatic business acumen.” He is highly respected in the industry, with other commentators lauding him as a “phenomenal strategist” and “one of the top employment litigators in the country.”

“Tony is the author of the treatise titled Employment Discrimination Depositions (Juris Pub’g 2020; www.jurispub.com), co-author of Proskauer on Privacy (PLI 2020), and, since 1990, has been a regular columnist for the official publication of the Labor and Employment Law Section of the State Bar of California and the Los Angeles Daily Journal.

Tony has been a featured guest on Fox 11 News and CBS News in Los Angeles. He has been interviewed and quoted by leading national media outlets such as The National Law JournalBloomberg News, The New York Times, and Newsweek and Time magazines. Tony is a frequent speaker on employment law topics for large and small groups of employers and their counsel, including the Society for Human Resource Management (“SHRM”), PIHRA, the National CLE Conference, National Business Institute, the Employment Round Table of Southern California (Board Member), the Council on Education in Management, the Institute for Corporate Counsel, the State Bar of California, the California Continuing Education of the Bar Program and the Los Angeles and Beverly Hills Bar Associations. He has testified as an expert witness regarding wage and hour issues as well as the California Fair Employment and Housing Act and has served as a faculty member of the National Employment Law Institute. He has served as an arbitrator in an employment discrimination matter.

Tony is an appointed Hearing Examiner for the Los Angeles Police Commission Board of Rights and has served as an Adjunct Professor of Law and a guest lecturer at USC Law School and a guest lecturer at UCLA Law School.

Photo of Mark Theodore Mark Theodore

Mark Theodore is a partner in the Labor & Employment Law Department. He has devoted his practice almost exclusively to representing management in all aspects of traditional labor law matters throughout the U.S. He is Co-Chair of Proskauer’s Labor-Management and Collective Bargaining Practice…

Mark Theodore is a partner in the Labor & Employment Law Department. He has devoted his practice almost exclusively to representing management in all aspects of traditional labor law matters throughout the U.S. He is Co-Chair of Proskauer’s Labor-Management and Collective Bargaining Practice Group.

Some recent highlights of his career include:

  • Successfully defended client against allegations that it had terminated a union supporter and isolated another. T-Mobile USA, Inc., 365 NLRB No. 15 (2017).
  • Successfully appealed NLRB findings that certain of client’s written policies violated the National Labor Relations Actions Act.  T-Mobile USA, Inc., 363 NLRB No. 171 (2016), enf’d in part, rev’d in part 865 F.3d 265 (5th Cir. 2017).
  • Represented major utility in NLRB proceedings related to organizing of planners.  Secured utility-wide bargaining unit. Bargained on behalf of grocery chain.  After negotiations reached an impasse, guided the company through lawful implementation of five year collective bargaining agreement.
  • Coordinated employer response in numerous strike situations including a work stoppage across 14 western states of the client’s operations.

Mark has extensive experience representing employers in all matters before the NLRB, including representation petitions, jurisdictional disputes and the handling of unfair labor practice charges from the date they are filed through trial and appeal. Mark has acted as lead negotiator for dozens of major companies in a variety of industries, including national, multi-unit, multi-location, multi-employer and multi-union bargaining. Mark has handled lockout and strike situations, coordinating the clients efforts.

In addition, Mark has handled hundreds of arbitrations involving virtually every area of dispute, including contract interest arbitration, contract interpretation, just cause termination/discipline, benefits, pay rates, and hours of work.

Photo of Sehreen Ladak Sehreen Ladak

Sehreen represents employers from a variety of industries in all aspects of employment litigation, including wage and hour, wrongful termination, discrimination, harassment, retaliation, whistleblower, and breach of contract litigation, in both the single-plaintiff and class-action context. She also counsels clients in a wide…

Sehreen represents employers from a variety of industries in all aspects of employment litigation, including wage and hour, wrongful termination, discrimination, harassment, retaliation, whistleblower, and breach of contract litigation, in both the single-plaintiff and class-action context. She also counsels clients in a wide range of labor and employment matters, including wage and hour issues, personnel policies and procedures, and employee discipline matters.

Sehreen earned her J.D. from USC Gould School of Law, where she was the Executive Submissions Editor of the Southern California Review of Law and Social Justice. During law school, she was also a student supervisor at the USC Immigration Clinic, and she served as a judicial extern to the Honorable Kathleen Mulligan in the U.S. Equal Opportunity Commission.