In late 2023, California supersized the minimum wage for fast food workers by a whopping 25 percent (increasing it from $16 to $20). This law was opposed by the fast food industry, while labor unions (and their many friends and admirers in Sacramento) insisted it would “benefit workers.”
Well, the results are in. According to a new study released by the Berkeley Research Group, the
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 July 25, 2024, the California Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of Proposition 22, the law allowing gig economy workers to be classified as independent contractors. The decision ends a nearly four-year legal battle over the law’s constitutionality and constitutes a major victory for gig economy giants like Uber, Lyft, and DoorDash.
Since Prop 22 was passed by California voters in 2020, companies have been
The Empire Struck Back last week when the California Court of Appeal held that the state’s latest back-door attempt to outlaw employment arbitration by any means necessary is preempted by the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA). Hernandez v. Sohnen Enterprises, Inc., 2024 WL 2313710 (Cal. Ct. App. 2024). As indicated in our earlier post on this topic, it was just a matter of time before
With the sweeping presence of technology today, the boundary between work life and home life has become increasingly blurred. A new bill recently introduced to the California legislature seeks to change that by protecting employees’ “right to disconnect.”
Assembly Bill 2751, introduced by Assemblyman Matt Haney (D-San Francisco), proposes to add a Section 1198.2 to the Labor Code that would effectively prevent employers from contacting employees
A newly enacted, under-the-radar statute in California could undermine efforts by employers to challenge the expert opinion testimony regarding alleged emotional distress offered by employees at trial.
In many if not most employment trials, the employee’s lawyer offers the expert testimony of a psychiatrist/psychologist (paid for by the plaintiff) who tells the jury about the existence and extent of the emotional distress the employee allegedly
A two-year standoff between the fast food industry and labor unions ended this week as stakeholders announced a deal that will increase the minimum wage to $20 for California workers at fast food chains with more than 60 locations nationwide.
As we previously reported, in September 2022, California passed A.B. 257, which created a 10-member fast-food council with authority to set wage, hour, and
On July 17, 2023, approximately one year after the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark decision in Viking River Cruises, the California Supreme Court issued its highly-anticipated decision in Adolph v. Uber Technologies. The Court answered the critical question of whether a Private Attorneys General Act (PAGA) plaintiff retains their standing to pursue non-individual claims after their individual claims are compelled to arbitration. As many