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Employees who sign an arbitration agreement with one company cannot avoid arbitration with related defendant-companies by arguing they were not parties to the agreement. The California Court of Appeal held that claims against...more
Departing from the ruling in Soltero v. Precise Distribution earlier this year, the California Court of Appeal in the Second District in Gonzalez v. Nowhere Beverly Hills LLC, created a split of authority regarding an alleged...more
Hand-signed arbitration agreements will be easier for employers to enforce in light of a recent California Court of Appeal ruling. Declarations from former employees claiming they “do not recall” having signed their...more
Evenskaas v. California Transit Inc. reversed a Los Angeles Superior Court judge’s denial of an employer’s motion to compel arbitration of a former employee’s wage and hour class action. The trial court had concluded that the...more
On July 8, 2022, in Gist v. ZoAn Management, Inc., the Oregon Supreme Court affirmed the decisions of the trial court and court of appeals granting the defendants’ motion to compel arbitration. The court concluded that...more
If you have an arbitration agreement, do you have to compel arbitration when the lawsuit is filed or can you wait awhile? This week, the Supreme Court concluded that a party litigating in federal court cannot later compel...more
A former driver for UberEats alleged that Uber misclassified drivers as independent contractors as part of a PAGA action. Uber sought an order to compel arbitration of the question of whether the plaintiff was an independent...more
Chamber of Commerce v. Bonta, No. 20-15291, 2021 WL 4187860 (9th Cir. Sep. 15, 2021) - Summary: The FAA does not preempt Labor Code section 432.6’s prohibition of mandatory employment arbitration agreements, but does...more
In Garcia v. Haralambos Beverage Co., the California Court of Appeal embraced the adage “time kills all deals” to conclude that an employer waived its right to arbitrate the wage-hour claims at issue in the case by, among...more
Although the Supreme Court of the United States has not yet taken up the issue, California courts routinely hold an employee cannot be compelled to submit to arbitration an action seeking penalties under the Private Attorneys...more
On November 26, 2019, San Francisco Superior Court Judge Richard B. Ulmer ruled that the Federal Arbitration Act (“FAA”) might not apply to Uber drivers who are engaged in interstate commerce while driving passengers to or...more
In ZB, N.A. v. Superior Court of San Diego County (Lawson), the California Supreme Court held that unpaid wages are not civil penalties under California Labor Code section 558 and are therefore outside the reach of...more
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
On August 29, 2019, the California Supreme Court held in OTO, L.L.C. v. Kho, S244630, that a mandatory arbitration agreement may be unenforceable against employee wage claims if it requires the employee to forego the “Berman”...more
Seyfarth Synopsis: In a must-read decision and case of first impression at the federal appellate level, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals held late last week that a district court may not approve sending notice of an FLSA...more
Three delivery drivers sued a transportation broker for failure to pay overtime and minimum wages, failure to provide rest and meal breaks, failure to timely pay wages upon termination, and willful refusal to pay wages on...more
A former employee of Waterstone Mortgage Corporation filed a class action against Waterstone in Wisconsin federal court in 2011 alleging wage violations and breach of contract. ...more
On September 27, 2018, the Kentucky Supreme Court in Northern Kentucky Area Development District v. Snyder held that the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA) does not preempt a Kentucky statute, KRS § 336.070(2), barring employers...more
Seyfarth Synopsis: In an important decision for employers seeking to enforce arbitration agreements and limit wage and hour exposure and related defense costs, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit reaffirmed that...more
The controversy over whether employees must arbitrate wage claims continues with full force. A federal judge has just sent to arbitration a claim by an employee that the Company violated the Fair Labor Standards Act by not...more
The Fourth Circuit upheld a district court’s decision refusing to compel arbitration in a labor dispute between a gentlemen’s club (“Crazy Horse”) and a putative class of entertainers because of Crazy Horse’s extensive...more
In Kim v. Reins International California, Inc. (B278642, Cal. Ct. App., December 29, 2017), the Court of Appeal for the Second Appellate District addressed for the first time the question of whether an employee-plaintiff, who...more
There were no notable settlements in independent contractor misclassification class action cases that came to our attention last month, but there was an array of significant IC cases in various stages of litigation. Two of...more
In a unanimous decision, the California Supreme Court ruled today that plaintiffs in lawsuits brought pursuant to the California Private Attorneys General Act (PAGA), can seek the contact information for their fellow...more
Four of the five independent contractor (IC) misclassification cases reported below from July 2016 illustrate how companies continue to fail to structure, document, and implement a business’s IC relationships in a manner that...more