Wildfires continue to rage across Southern California, leveling entire neighborhoods, forcing evacuations for tens of thousands of people, and posing incredible hardship on businesses and their employees. Below are a few common scenarios employers should know about paying their California employees and maintaining compliance with wage and hour laws:
“Our office was closed for a few days because of the fires. Do we have to
In yet another attempt to avoid arbitration agreements, plaintiffs’ lawyers in the wake of the blockbuster court decisions in Viking River Cruises, Inc. v. Moriana and Adolph v. Uber Technologies, Inc. began filing so-called “headless” claims for civil penalties under the Labor Code Private Attorneys General Act (“PAGA”). In such cases, the plaintiff seeks civil penalties for all allegedly aggrieved employees except themself. Thus, these
As 2024 came to a close, yet another California jury delivered a massive award to an individual plaintiff in an employment discrimination case. This time, it was an award of over $11 million by a San Diego jury to a medical screener at a plasma donation center (Roque v. Octapharma Plasma, Inc.). The 74-year-old plaintiff alleged that her employer failed to accommodate her
On November 8, 2024, the California Privacy Protection Agency (CPPA) voted 4-1 to proceed with formal rulemaking regarding automated decision-making technology (“ADMT”), which the draft regulations define as “any technology that processes personal information and uses computation to execute a decision, replace human decisionmaking, or substantially facilitate human decisionmaking.” If enacted, the regulations would impose sweeping requirements on employers who rely on assistance from artificial
The California Labor Workforce Development Agency (LWDA) recently refreshed its Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) regarding Private Attorneys General Act (PAGA) claims processing in light of the recent legislative reforms.
As we reported here, California enacted A.B. 2288 and S.B. 92 this past summer, bringing long-overdue reforms to PAGA. The new legislation applies to PAGA notices and any resulting actions filed on or after June
The “Summer of PAGA” continued last week when the California Supreme Court ruled in Turrieta v. Lyft, Inc., Case No. S271721, that a plaintiff in a Private Attorneys General Act (PAGA) action does not have standing to intervene or object to a settlement in a parallel action involving overlapping PAGA claims.
The structure of PAGA tends to invite the scenario facing the parties and
On June 27, 2024, the California Legislature passed AB 2288 and SB 92, compromise legislation that reformed the Private Attorneys General Act (PAGA) and averted a ballot measure that threatened to repeal the law entirely this November. We previously reported on the compromise here when the deal was announced, and published a primer on the substantive changes to the law here.
Arguably the
On June 27, 2024, by near-unanimous vote, the California Legislature passed two bills enacting much-needed reform to the Private Attorneys General Act (PAGA). We previously reported on the legislative compromise last week, when the deal was first announced.
The most profound changes are contained in AB 2288, which amended Labor Code § 2699—the beating heart of PAGA. AB 2288 makes several significant changes to the
For the past 40 years, federal administrative agencies have enjoyed broad latitude in interpreting statutes passed by Congress. Known as “Chevron deference,” courts have routinely deferred to the agencies’ often politically motivated and even self-empowering interpretation of an otherwise ambiguous statute. This has led to a significant delegation (indeed, some would say surrender) of authority by the legislative and judicial branches to the executive
Inspired by a push to repeal the Private Attorneys General Act (PAGA) by ballot measure (which we previously covered here and here), and at the urging of Governor Gavin Newsom, stakeholders have reached an agreement in principle to reform PAGA and avoid a high-stakes showdown come November. If the Legislature passes the compromise into law by June 27, the measure will be pulled from