State Employment Law Articles

Case management is such an important task for litigators. We must plan how best to utilize the allotted and often limited time provided for each case.

This article is an update to prior publications from Littler’s Workplace Policy Institute regarding Assembly Bill 5 (AB 5), passed by the California legislature on September 11, 2019.

Executive Summary: After months of debate and negotiations, the California State Legislature passed the controversial AB 5 on Wednesday, September 11, 2019, bringing it one step closer to being law. If passed, the new law is expected to impact and clarify the use of independent contractors throughou

Putting an end to employees’ backdoor attempts to recover unpaid wages in Private Attorneys General Act-only actions under California Labor Code Section 558, the California Supreme Court has ruled against allowing such claims. ZB, N.A., et al. v. Superior Court, No. S246711 (Sept. 12, 2019).

The California Assembly has passed a bill that would require workers to be classified as employees if the employer exerts control over how the workers perform their tasks or if their work is part of the employer’s regular business.

In order to avoid fines and lawsuits, companies recruiting in Illinois should remove any questions about prior pay from their job applications and any related documents both on-line or in hard copy.

A trend may be developing in favor of non-compete agreements in Louisiana. Two recent appellate court decisions enforced their terms, even though they contained either overly broad or ambiguous language. The first is from the Louisiana Supreme Court, Causin, L.L.C. v. Pace Safety Consultants, LLC, w

In recent years both New York State and New York City have actively amended their anti-discrimination laws to expand worker protections. For example, both the state and city have passed laws requiring most employers to distribute anti-sexual harassment policies and to provide anti-harassment trainin

As a result of a new appellate court decision, New York employers may now face liquidated damages for failing to pay employees as frequently as required by the New York Labor Law. In a recent unexpected decision that departs from the conventional wisdom and older precedent, the Appellate Division of

School is back in session and employees may soon be asking for time off to attend school related activities involving their children and grandchildren. Employees in California who work at a worksite with 25 or more employees are eligible to take off up to 40 hours a year for child-related activities

On August 26, 2019, the Delaware Chancery Court invalidated a California employee’s customer and employee non-solicitation covenant on the grounds that it violated California law. In doing so, the Court rejected the plaintiff company’s attempt to override California law by including a Delaware choic

On September 5, 2019, the Washington Supreme Court confirmed that non-agricultural employers may use a workweek averaging methodology to satisfy the Washington Minimum Wage Act in Valerie Sampson et al v. Knight Transportation Inc. et al. In other words, non-agricultural employers can satisfy their

The California worker classification bill, Assembly Bill 5 (AB 5), advanced closer to passage just prior to the Labor Day weekend.

In response to trends, heightened public awareness, and a string of large-scale data breaches, states continue to enhance their data breach notification laws. Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker recently signed into law an amendment to the Personal Information Protection Act (PIPA), SB 1624, effective J

On August 30, 2019, California Governor Gavin Newsom signed Senate Bill 778, delaying mandatory anti-harassment training deadlines, and resolving confusion about retraining requirements for certain employees who already received training in 2018 or 2019.

On August 30, 2019, Governor Gavin Newsom signed Senate Bill (SB) 778, which amends Section 12950.1 of the California Government Code. SB 778 extends California employers’ obligation from January 1, 2020 to January 1, 2021, to comply with sexual harassment trainings as outlined under California Gove

On Friday, August 30, 2019, the California State Senate Appropriations Committee approved controversial legislation—Assembly Bill 5 (A.B. 5)—that would potentially reclassify millions of independent contractors as “employees” under California state labor laws. The Committee’s approval moves the bill

Georgia’s Restrictive Covenants Act (O.C.G.A. § 13-8-50 et seq.) (“RCA”) governs Georgia non-compete agreements entered into after May 2011. Very few courts have interpreted the RCA since its inception.[1] In Bearoff v. Craton, decided a few months ago, the Georgia Court of Appeals authored its very

On August 30, 2019, the California Senate Appropriations Committee briefly considered AB 5, the legislature’s response to the California Supreme Court's 2018 opinion in Dynamex v. Superior Court (Dynamex). In Dynamex, the court changed the state’s longstanding law governing worker classification and

Despite having its anti-arbitration rulings reversed several times (and counting) by the United States Supreme Court, the California Supreme Court issued another questionable anti-arbitration decision today in Oto, LLC v. Kho, furthering the Golden State’s ongoing agenda to try to disallow these agr