Last year, we questioned whether California’s new restrictions on independent contractors would apply retroactively. Yesterday, the Ninth Circuit decided in Vazquez v. Jan-Pro Franchising Int’l, 2019 WL 1945001 (9th Cir. 2019), that the landmark ruling in Dynamex Operations West, Inc. v. Superior Court should be applied retroactively.
The new test established in Dynamex upended the Borello test, a multi-factor test that had
For the second time this calendar year, a Los Angeles jury ordered an employer to pay $11 million to an employee who claimed to have been sexually harassed. And, once again, the amount of punitive damages ($8 million) dwarfed the amount of compensatory damages ($3.1 million) by a margin of more than two-to-one.
On Friday, the jury ruled against Alki David, a hologram producer
I’m delighted to be presenting a webinar on “Sexual Harassment Claims and Mandatory Arbitration Agreements” for the California Lawyers Association from 12:00 to 1:00 pm PDT on Wednesday, April 24. In the wake of the #MeToo Movement, the use of pre-dispute arbitration agreements in the context of sexual harassment claims has come under fierce attack with some companies abandoning them altogether. We will discuss this
Tony Oncidi: On the issue of #MeToo and the current and best way for an employer to respond to those issues, I think there are certain things that are essentially table stakes that all employers need to do before they start considering other options. Number one, they have to make sure that they have all the appropriate policies in place, all of the reporting opportunities
On Tuesday, April 16, 1-2 pm PDT, Tony Oncidi will be joining the Employment Roundtable of Southern California (ERTSC) and presenting the webinar, A Quick Legal Update of New Employment Laws and Cases.
The New Year rang in nearly twenty new employment laws. 2018 and 2019 have produced dozens and dozens of significant employment cases. Whether you are an experienced human resources expert/employment attorney or
Just another day in paradise in Los Angeles… Unless you happen to be an employer. Continuing the recent spate of multi-million dollar verdicts, an LA jury awarded a former police officer $7 million on her sex discrimination claim.
Lili Hadsell, a former police chief for the City of Baldwin Park, alleged that she was subjected to sex discrimination over her 14 years of service.
We invite you to review our newly-posted March 2019 California Employment Law Notes, a comprehensive review of the latest and most significant developments in California employment law. The highlights include:
There they go again! As we predicted last November, the California legislature is once again trying to outlaw arbitration agreements between employers and employees. Former Gov. Jerry Brown routinely vetoed similar bills that sought to prohibit arbitration of employment disputes on the anodyne ground that such legislation unquestionably conflicts with and is preempted by federal law. (Gov. Brown’s veto message.) However, with
The current landscape in the #MeToo Era has heightened the need for leaders at every business organization to ensure that sound and strategically aligned practices for preventing, receiving, and responding to harassment, discrimination and other workplace related claims are in place.
Proskauer has just released its findings from a broad-based survey of employers around the country who are responding to these pressing issues in real
Furry v. East Bay Pub’g, LLC, 30 Cal. App. 5th 1072 (2019)
Terry Furry worked as a sales and marketing director for the East Bay Express (a weekly newspaper based in Oakland) and alleged that East Bay failed to pay minimum and overtime wages, meal and rest breaks, provide properly itemized wage statements, etc. Following a bench trial, the court determined that East