Seyfarth Synopsis: While California courts have created annoying doctrines with respect to vacation pay, it remains the case that vacation pay is a matter of contract and that employers can avoid many problems with careful drafting of the vacation plan.
As we anticipate Labor Day weekend, note this mid-summer treat from the California Court of Appeal: its decision in
Continue Reading Put It In Writing: Policy Controls When Vacation Accrual Begins
Seyfarth Synopsis: Back from Spring Break, and Back to Work: Our List of L&E Bills to Watch in the remainder of the 2017-2018 California Legislative Session.
California Legislators were, as always, very busy in the first few months of the 2017-18 Legislative Session, introducing well over 2000 bills by the February 17th bill introduction deadline. But, in comparison to prior
Continue Reading 2017 California Labor and Employment Legislative Update: What to Watch
Seyfarth Synopsis: 2016 brought a wave of new protections for California employees and scant protection for employers. In this week’s post, we anticipate changes for 2017, in the ever-peculiar world of California employment law.
True to our tradition, we pause at the beginning of the New Year to reflect on last year’s California employment law changes, and consider possible trends.
Continue Reading Charting the Future: What’s Coming in 2017 in California Employment Law?
Seyfarth Synopsis: California’s rules on rest breaks are still developing. Recent cases have addressed the timing of rest breaks, and whether employees (particularly those who remain “on call”) must be relieved of all duty during breaks.
Our fair state has long imposed peculiar—and specific—requirements for employee work breaks. Varying interpretations of the rules for meal and rest breaks have spawned
Continue Reading No Rest for the Weary: California Law on Rest Breaks
The countdown begins to receiving some clarity on the suitable seating rule from the California Supreme Court. On January 5, 2016, the Court heard oral argument in the consolidated matters of Kilby v. CVS Pharmacy, Inc. and Henderson v. JP Morgan Chase Bank. These putative class actions claim that the employers violated Section 14 of Wage Orders 4-2001 and
Continue Reading Edge of Our Seats: Oral Argument on “Suitable Seats” Cases
“The rest is silence.” So spake Hamlet, as he expired on stage. Lawyers love wordplay. Webster defined it as the “playful or clever use of words.” Google defines wordplay as “the witty exploitation of the meanings and ambiguities of words, especially in puns.” Shakespeare was the king of wordplay; his exuberant punning, much like Hamlet’s famous last words, has kept literary critics debating for centuries over their meaning.
Lawyers especially enjoy the wordplay game of statutory interpretation, which many regard as the highest form of intellectual fodder. No one can deny that wage and hour litigation often arises out of the exploration (or exploitation) of seemingly innocuous words in California’s Labor Code. Perhaps the most litigated word in recent years was “provide”—until the California Supreme Court issued, in Brinker v. Superior Court, the final word on an employer’s duty to “provide” meal periods.
Currently in the hot seat are lesser-known words, contained in the Labor Code’s “day of rest” provisions:
Adding further to the confusion, the IWC Wage Orders acknowledge that an employee will sometimes work more than six consecutive days. They state that Sections 551 and 552 shall not be construed to prevent an accumulation of days of rest when “the nature of the employment reasonably requires the employee to work seven (7) or more consecutive days; provided, however, that in each calendar month, the employee shall receive the equivalent of one (1) day’s rest in seven (7).”
Employers have grappled with what it means to “cause” an employee to work six days in seven, what it means to provide “one day’s rest in seven,” and when the day of rest requirement is excused. Wage and hour litigation has exploited the ambiguity in these statutes. But the California Supreme Court now has an opportunity to provide some clarity.Continue Reading Mendoza v. Nordstrom: Court to Define “Day of Rest”
By Daniel Whang
In plaintiff-friendly California, it may be surprising to learn that the California Supreme Court threw a few bones to employers during 2014. First, although lower courts seem determined to make it easier for plaintiffs to obtain certification in wage and hour class actions, the California Supreme Court’s decision in Duran v. U.S. Bank signaled that certification of wage and hour claims has become too perfunctory.
The Duran decision, covered in far more detail in a client alert, requires trial courts to consider an often neglected requirement for class certification: that the trial of the certified claims would be manageable. Duran is one of the few wage and hour class actions that went to trial, and the disastrous consequences of a poorly planned trial provided a powerful lesson that courts need to be far more careful in certifying class actions.
If Duran provided a useful weapon to oppose class certification, the California Supreme Court threw employers another bone by solidifying an employer’s ability to enforce class action waivers in arbitration agreements. In Iskanian v. CLS Transportation Los Angeles, LLC, the California Supreme Court acknowledged that, under the United States Supreme Court’s decision in AT&T Mobility LLC v. Concepcion, class action waivers in arbitration agreements are enforceable.
But this was not a total employer victory. The California Supreme Court also held that claims under the Private Attorneys General Act of 2004 (“PAGA”) are not subject to mandatory arbitration, because the State (and not the employee) is the real party in interest and the State is not a party to an employer’s arbitration agreement. While employers were hopeful that the United States Supreme Court would grant the petition to review the PAGA exception that the California Supreme Court had created, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear the petition, leaving Iskanian good law for now, and permitting employees to pursue PAGA claims in court even if they have signed arbitration agreements that waive the right to pursue class and representative actions.
Continue Reading California Supreme Court: What It Did To Employers In 2014 And What’s Pending
Our readers will be happy to see the end of 2014, from an employment law point of view. With the exception of the Iskanian case, in which the California Supremes finally agreed that most workplace disputes can be subject to mandatory arbitration, employers had little to cheer about. This past year the Golden State brought us a new crop of employee entitlements—also known as employer mandates—requiring significant changes in how companies hire, schedule labor, monitor hours of work, and give employees time off.
Clothed in the language of worker rights and positive societal goals (e.g., the “Healthy Workplaces/Healthy Families Act”), the new laws increasingly cover areas that traditionally have been the subject of collective bargaining (e.g., mandatory paid time off and rates of pay). There is also a trend toward preventing job loss that might result from personal life circumstances, such as requiring paid time off for an employee to seek help for domestic violence, and forbidding questions about an applicant’s criminal or credit history. In short, government protectionism is alive and well in California.
What were the biggest headlines of the year? Let’s focus on three:
Continue Reading Happy New Year! And a Look Back at 2014
Recently, one of our colleagues, Jim Harris, attended the oral argument in Iskanian v. CLS Transportation of Los Angeles, LLC. The California Supreme Court’s decision, expected by July 3, 2014, will have significant consequences for employers who use or are contemplating using mandatory arbitration agreements with class action waivers. The result could be that the Gentry case is
Continue Reading Let’s Play Two: California Supreme Court Hears Oral Argument in Two Important Class Action Cases
By Brian Long
The California Supreme Court rarely puts employers in the holiday spirit. But this year, amidst all the lumps of coal that employers could find in the Christmas stocking, there was one treat: Harris v. City of Santa Monica (2013) 56 Cal.4th 203.
In Harris, a unanimous high court held that a “same decision” defense applies to employment
Continue Reading Year-End Round-Up of Employment Cases Pending Before the Cal Supremes
