Yesterday, the California Supreme Court held that private litigants may not recover unpaid wages under the Labor Code Private Attorneys General Act (“PAGA”). See ZB, N.A. v. Superior Court (Lawson) (Cal. S. Ct. Sept. 12, 2019).
In a rearguard effort to fight employment arbitration agreements, which usually include class action waivers, plaintiffs’ lawyers have been routinely filing PAGA representative actions in an effort to stay
Please see the linked Los Angeles Daily Journal article for details about some major recent developments affecting employment arbitration in California.
Assembly Bill 5, a proposed new law currently pending in the California legislature, would limit and codify last year’s California Supreme Court Dynamex opinion. If passed and signed into law by Gov. Newsom (he’s already said he’ll sign it), AB-5 would make it nearly impossible for most California employers to hire an independent contractor and would convert such workers into “employees” in the
Employers all over California are once again hearing the siren call of arbitration in the wake of a $15.4 million single-plaintiff verdict that a Los Angeles jury delivered to a former Los Angeles Times sports columnist on Monday. T.J. Simers sued the paper for age and disability discrimination. Simers quit his job in 2013 following an investigation into a possible ethical breach on his
Five In-Home Supportive Service (“IHSS”) providers filed a class-action lawsuit last month challenging their union’s practice of deducting union dues despite their quitting the union. The workers allege their First Amendment rights are being violated by the union deducting dues from their paychecks and using it to subsidize union speech. Just one year ago, the United States Supreme Court held that it is a
Earlier this week, three taxpayers sued California Secretary of State Alex Padilla to prevent enforcement of Senate Bill 826.
Senate Bill 826, signed into law last year by former Governor Jerry Brown, requires that by the end of 2019, all publicly held foreign or domestic corporations whose principal executive offices are in California shall have at least one female director on their boards
We’re delighted to report that we secured two summary judgments in two separate alleged discrimination cases on behalf of a large Southern California hospital in matters that were pending in the Los Angeles Superior Court.
In one case, decided on July 12, 2019, the Court agreed with our client that the former employee had failed to establish a prima facie case of discrimination and, as
The 9th Circuit court of appeals has enforced the City of Everett, Washington’s Dress Code Ordinance and amendments to the Lewd Conduct Ordinances. These ordinances require employees of “Quick-Service” facilities to cover “minimum body areas” (the dress code ordinance specifically stated that it was targeting an apparent influx of “bikini barista stands”). The owner of “Hillbilly Hotties,” a coffee stand where employees wear only bikinis,
In a decision unsurprising to anyone familiar with what California juries have been up to lately (see our reporting here), fast-food titan Jack in the Box was ordered to pay $15.4 million (including a staggering $10 million in punitive damages) last week in a lawsuit involving age and disability discrimination claims, as well as alleged retaliation and hostile work environment.
The former employee,