Seyfarth Synopsis: The Supreme Court just held that employers, when calculating the premium pay due for failing to provide legally compliant meal and rest periods, must include all nondiscretionary payments—not just pay the...more
Seyfarth Synopsis: Two appellate courts applying California law have rejected hypertechnical challenges to the adequacy of wage statements under Labor Code section 226. The decisions provide some clarity, remind us that the...more
Seyfarth Synopsis: In Donohue v. AMN Services, LLC, a class action seeking meal period premium pay, the California Supreme Court reversed the Court of Appeal and held that employers cannot engage in the practice of rounding...more
Seyfarth Synopsis: The Ninth Circuit has held that a weekly per diem benefit paid by a healthcare staffing agency to its traveling clinicians is a wage that increases the employee’s regular rate used to calculate overtime...more
Seyfarth Synopsis: In a case involving motor carriers, the California Court of Appeal has held that the FAAAA (Federal Aviation Administration Authorization Act of 1994) does not preempt the ABC employment test California...more
12/1/2020
/ ABC Test ,
Borello Test ,
Commercial Truck Drivers ,
Employee Definition ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Federal Aviation Administration Authorization Act of 1994 (FAAAA) ,
Gig Economy ,
Independent Contractors ,
Labor Regulations ,
Misclassification ,
Motor Carriers ,
Owner-Operators ,
State and Local Government ,
State Labor Laws ,
Wage and Hour
Seyfarth Synopsis: A federal court has granted a preliminary injunction blocking the State of California from enforcing AB 5 against motor carriers. The court provided a fulsome analysis demonstrating that the Federal...more
1/20/2020
/ ABC Test ,
Commercial Truck Drivers ,
Dynamex ,
Employee Definition ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Federal Aviation Administration Authorization Act of 1994 (FAAAA) ,
Federal Labor Laws ,
Freelance Workers ,
Gig Economy ,
Hiring & Firing ,
Independent Contractors ,
Labor Regulations ,
Misclassification ,
Motion to Dismiss ,
Motion To Enjoin ,
Motor Carriers ,
New Legislation ,
Preemption ,
Preliminary Injunctions ,
Retroactive Application ,
Rulemaking Process ,
State and Local Government ,
State Labor Laws ,
Teamsters ,
TRO ,
Trucking Industry ,
Trucking Regulations ,
Wage and Hour
Seyfarth Synopsis: The California Supreme Court has held that an individual may not seek unpaid wages under Labor Code section 558. Section 558 can be invoked only by the Labor Commissioner or by an individual suing under...more
9/20/2019
/ Appeals ,
Arbitration ,
Arbitration Agreements ,
CA Supreme Court ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Employment Contract ,
Employment Litigation ,
Labor Code ,
Motion to Compel ,
Private Attorneys General Act (PAGA) ,
Unpaid Wages ,
Wage and Hour
Seyfarth Synopsis: The California Supreme Court invalidated an employment arbitration agreement on August 29, 2019. At issue in OTO, LLC v. Kho was an agreement to arbitrate employment claims, including wage claims. Under the...more
9/11/2019
/ Arbitration ,
Arbitration Agreements ,
Berman Hearings ,
CA Supreme Court ,
Corporate Counsel ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Employment Contract ,
Employment Litigation ,
Fairness Standard ,
Federal Arbitration Act ,
Preemption ,
Unconscionable Contracts ,
Wage and Hour
Seyfarth Synopsis: In Voris v. Lampert, the California Supreme Court held that unpaid wages cannot be recovered through a tort claim for conversion....more
8/27/2019
/ Alter Ego ,
CA Supreme Court ,
Compensation & Benefits ,
Conversion ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Employment Litigation ,
Failure To Pay ,
Hiring & Firing ,
Popular ,
Stocks ,
Unpaid Wages ,
Wage and Hour
Seyfarth Synopsis: Traditionally, “report for work” has meant physically showing up at the jobsite, ready to work. ...more
Seyfarth Synopsis: In Donohue v. AMN Services, LLC, a class action alleging unpaid wages, the California Court of Appeal affirmed a summary judgment for the employer, upholding a rounding policy that was neutral on its face...more
12/21/2018
/ Appeals ,
Business Expenses ,
Class Action ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Employment Policies ,
Labor Law Violations ,
Rest and Meal Break ,
Unfair or Deceptive Trade Practices ,
Unpaid Overtime ,
Unpaid Wages ,
Wage and Hour
Seyfarth Synopsis: The California Court of Appeal has upheld the validity of pay plans that guarantee a wage that meets or exceeds the minimum wage for all hours worked during a pay period, but that also enables the employees...more
Seyfarth Synopsis: The Ninth Circuit, following the Supreme Court’s 2018 decision in Epic Systems Corp. v. Lewis, has upheld the validity of class-action waivers in Uber’s arbitration agreement, and has held that a named...more
10/10/2018
/ Arbitration ,
Arbitration Agreements ,
Class Action ,
Class Action Arbitration Waivers ,
Employment Litigation ,
Epic Systems Corp v Lewis ,
Illusory Contracts ,
Independent Contractors ,
Misclassification ,
Motion to Compel ,
Opt-Outs ,
Ridesharing ,
Sharing Economy ,
Uber ,
Wage and Hour
Seyfarth Synopsis: A collective bargaining agreement, to permissibly waive a negotiable statutory right, must do so in a clear and unmistakable manner, by mentioning either the statutory protection being waived or the statute...more
8/22/2018
/ Appeals ,
Collective Bargaining Agreements (CBA) ,
Contract Terms ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Employment Litigation ,
Grocery Stores ,
Rest and Meal Break ,
Statutory Rights ,
Summary Judgment ,
Unions ,
Wage and Hour ,
Waiver of Rights
Seyfarth Synopsis: Employers must pay “waiting time” penalties for willfully failing to timely pay wages due upon termination. Last week the California Court of Appeal dealt employers a double whammy: (i) mere negligence can...more
6/1/2018
/ Class Action ,
Class Certification ,
Corporate Counsel ,
Employee Rights ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Employment Litigation ,
Hiring & Firing ,
Negligence ,
Penalties ,
Summary Judgment ,
Termination ,
Unpaid Wages ,
Wage and Hour
Employers adopting an Alternative Workweek Schedule (AWS) must follow the specific rules in the applicable wage order or face liability for unpaid overtime. But employees cannot recover penalties for accurate wage statements,...more
5/17/2018
/ Appeals ,
Class Action ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Employment Litigation ,
State and Local Government ,
State Labor Laws ,
Unpaid Overtime ,
Unpaid Wages ,
Wage and Hour ,
Wage Statements ,
Work Schedules
Seyfarth Synopsis: The California Supreme Court, in Dynamex Operations v. Superior Court, held that “engage, suffer or permit to work” determines employee status for Wage Order claims...more
Seyfarth Synopsis: California employees who are denied adequate wage statements (“paystubs”) can sue for penalties. Paystub penalty plaintiffs generally must prove they suffered an “injury” caused by the employer’s “knowing...more
Seyfarth Synopsis: In OTO, LLC v. Kho, the California Labor Commissioner challenged a car dealership’s mandatory arbitration agreement. The agreement required employment disputes to be arbitrated under normal civil litigation...more
Seyfarth Synopsis: In Mendoza v. Nordstrom, Inc., the Supreme Court resolved three unsettled questions concerning how to read California’s “day of rest” statutes: Employees are entitled to one day of rest during each...more
Seyfarth Synopsis: Our mission here at Cal-Pecs is to illuminate how California employment law differs from the law that employers generally experience throughout America. In this back-to-basics piece, we provide some...more
5/24/2017
/ Anti-Harassment Policies ,
Employment Discrimination ,
Exempt-Employees ,
Farm Workers ,
Hiring & Firing ,
Labor Law Violations ,
Minimum Wage ,
Over-Time ,
Piece-Rate Pay ,
Reimbursements ,
Religious Accommodation ,
Rest and Meal Break ,
Sales Commissions ,
Sick Leave ,
Traveling Employee ,
Undocumented Immigrants ,
Unions ,
Vacation Leave ,
Wage and Hour ,
Work Schedules ,
Wrongful Termination
Seyfarth Synopsis: The Court of Appeal has held that unless a collective bargaining agreement includes an explicitly stated, clear and unmistakable, intent to waive the right to a judicial forum for statutory causes of...more
2/13/2017
/ Appeals ,
Arbitration ,
Class Action Arbitration Waivers ,
Collective Actions ,
Collective Bargaining Agreements (CBA) ,
Contract Terms ,
Grievance Process ,
Hospitals ,
Labor Law Violations ,
Lack of Specificity ,
Motion to Compel ,
Nurses ,
Reaffirmation ,
Rest and Meal Break ,
Unions ,
Unpaid Overtime ,
Wage and Hour
Seyfarth Synopsis: A California federal judge has held that an out-of-state employee’s limited presence in California is not enough on its own to require the employer to comply with California wage and hour laws. Oman v....more
Seyfarth Synopsis: In Lubin v. Wackenhut Corp., the California Court of Appeal reinstated an effort to certify a class of over 10,000 security officers required to sign on-duty meal period agreements. The Court of Appeal...more
Seyfarth Synopsis: Accrued vacation pay is not a category that must appear on employee wage statements.
California Labor Code section 226 requires employers to report various categories of information on employee wage...more