Seyfarth Synopsis: As the number of class actions alleging FCRA violations continues to skyrocket, it is critical for California employers to understand the basics of all laws affecting employment screening programs. This blog examines those laws and provides practical considerations for employers looking to hire or rehire employees during a shutdown affecting critical sources of information needed for background
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How to Count to 67%: CAFA Jurisdiction in the Ninth Circuit
Seyfarth Synopsis: The Ninth Circuit, addressing how to prove exceptions under CAFA, reminds us that removal under CAFA might be an invitation for extensive preliminary discovery battles, and prolonged motion practice. The following post highlights some procedural realities of finding an appropriate venue for litigating class actions in California.
United States District Courts in California oversee some of the
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Recent Pay Equity Cases Show That Such Cases Are Ill-Suited For Class Treatment
We’re pleased to share a thoughtful look at whether lawsuits alleging illegal pay disparities under California law are suitable as class actions. This post, recently featured on Seyfarth’s Pay Equity Issues & Insights Blog, provides some compelling reasons to argue that they’re not.
Seyfarth Synopsis: Over the past few years we have seen groundbreaking changes to equal pay laws
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No Break for California Employers This Holiday Season
Seyfarth Synopsis: In what many employers will see as a “break” from workplace reality, the Supreme Court, in Augustus v. ABM Security Services, Inc., announced that certain “on call” rest periods do not comply with the California Labor Code and Wage Orders. The decision presents significant practical challenges for employers in industries where employees must respond to exigent
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The 16th Edition of Litigating California Wage & Hour and Labor Code Class Actions Is Here!
Authored by Christopher A. Crosman.
We are excited to announce the 16th edition of Seyfarth Shaw’s publication Litigating California Wage & Hour and Labor Code Class Actions. As in previous editions, this publication reviews the most commonly filed wage and hour and Labor Code class and representative claims and the development of the law over the last several
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Who me? Yes, YOU: Personal Liability For Wage Hour Violations
With March Madness in full swing, we interrupt your crumbling tournament brackets to ensure you’re aware of a truly maddening development. California law now makes individuals potentially liable for employer violations of many often-convoluted wage and hour rules.
That’s right—individuals, not just companies, may be liable for wage and hour violations.
We mentioned this legislation here last Fall,
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California Supreme Court: What It Did To Employers In 2014 And What’s Pending
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.
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U.S. Supreme Court Declines to Referee Slugfest Between Federal and California Courts on Enforceability of Arbitration Agreements
By David Kadue
On Tuesday, January 20, 2015, the Court declined to take the case of CLS Transportation Los Angeles, LLC v. Iskanian, in which an employer asked the Court to reverse a ruling of the California Supreme Court. At issue was whether an employee who has agreed to submit all employment-related claims to arbitration, and who has also agreed to waive participation in class and representative actions, can evade that agreement and sue the employer under California’s Private Attorney General Act (“PAGA”). The California Supreme Court in June 2014 had sided with the suing employee.
Many observers expected that the case would be the latest episode in a drama that features a complicated relationship between two supreme courts. To simplify a bit, the U.S. Supreme Court traditionally has read the Federal Arbitration Act (“FAA”) to require the enforcement of private arbitration agreements by their terms. The California Supreme Court, meanwhile, has often searched creatively for some Cal-centric reason to deny enforcement to arbitration agreements.
Recent examples of the contrasting supreme viewpoints have occurred in the context of arbitration agreements that waive the procedural right to proceed or participate in a class action. The California Supreme Court once held, in both the consumer-claim context and in the employee-claim context, that a class-action waiver in an arbitration agreement is unenforceable, because any such waiver offends the California public policy favoring class actions. But then the U.S. Supreme Court, in Concepion v. AT&T Mobility, ruled in 2011 that the FAA preempts the California ban on class-action waivers. Concepion involved a consumer complaint. For several years, California courts resisted the clear implication that Concepcion also applies to employee complaints. Finally, in Iskanian, the California Supreme Court relented, acknowledging that, under the FAA, class-action waivers in arbitration agreements are enforceable, even in California.
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Let’s Play Two: California Supreme Court Hears Oral Argument in Two Important Class Action Cases
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
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