California - General

In an important step for California, Governor Gavin Newsom signed SB 188 into law on July 3, 2019. SB 188 or also known as, the CROWN ACT, “Create a Respectful and Open Workplace for Natural Hair,” clarifies the definition of race for the workplace and educational institutions to include, but not li

A controversial amendment to the California Home Care Services Protection Act (Home Care Act) requires the state Department of Social Services (DSS) to provide the names, phone numbers, and addresses of new or renewing registered home care aides (HCAs) to labor unions on request, unless the aides op

In 2018, the Supreme Court of California turned much of the established law regarding worker classification on its head with its decision in Dynamex Operations West Inc. v. Superior Court.1 Dynamex addressed a single, narrow question: whether certain workers were appropriately classified as independ

On July 10, 2019, the California Senate Labor, Public Employment, and Retirement Committee (Committee) advanced a proposed legislative response to the California Supreme Court's opinion in Dynamex v. Superior Court, which abruptly and drastically altered the legal landscape for independent contracto

On July 3, California made history by enacting the Creating a Respectful and Open Workplace for Natural Hair (CROWN) Act, becoming the first state to ban discrimination on the basis of hairstyles associated with race. The CROWN Act adds hairstyles that are closely associated with race to the class o

The recent focus on the EEOC’s new Component 2 to its EEO-1 Report has been undeniable. It requires employers report on the race, ethnicity, sex, job type, pay, and hours worked data of its employees.

Last year, the California Supreme Court held the federal “de minimis” doctrine does not apply to California state law claims for unpaid wages for off-the-clock work allegedly performed on a regularly occurring basis in store closing and related activities. Troester v. Starbucks Corp., 5 Cal. 5th 829

With May 31st 2019, marking the deadline for bills to be passed by their California house of origin, the following are some key pieces of employment legislation that may find their way to Governor Gavin Newsom’s desk in October. Here is a round-up of potential 2020 legislation worth watching:

The California Senate Appropriations Committee recently blocked a bill that would expand a private right of action under the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA). As we reported, in late February, California Attorney General Xavier Becerra and Senator Hannah-Beth Jackson introduced Senate Bill 561

In April 2018, the California Supreme Court issued its landmark decision in Dynamex Operations West, Inc. v. Superior Court of Los Angeles, making it much more difficult for businesses to classify workers as independent contractors in California through its adoption of the so-called ABC test. Under

After a one-day bench trial, a sales representative for a security company successfully established that his employer had failed to reimburse him for mileage expenses, using only his odometer reading as the basis to calculate the owed mileage. Plaintiff was a “High Volume Sales Representative,” mean

California keeps making privacy headlines for its trailblazing California Consumer Privacy Act (“CCPA”), set to take effect January 1, 2020, but there is another set of privacy bills making its way through the California state legislature, that, if passed, will provide consumers with further privacy

Executive Summary: In 2018, the California Supreme Court adopted the “ABC test” for determining whether workers are independent contractors under California wage orders (the Dynamex decision). For a discussion of that decision, please see our May 3, 2018 Alert. The ABC test makes it more difficult i

California employers were dealt another setback in the responding to claims of misclassification of independent contractor status for violations of the Industrial Welfare Commission Wage Order (“IWC Wage Orders”). Noting California’s “basic legal tradition” that “judicial decisions are given retroac

Despite its name, the California Consumer Privacy Act, which goes into effect Jan. 1, 2020, potentially could impose substantial compliance burdens on and create significant class-action exposure for every employer that employs California residents and has more than $25 million in annual gross reven

The Labor Commissioner fined a Southern-California car wash for more than $2.36 million for alleged wage and hour violations. These fines included both civil penalties and wages owed to employees. This appears to be a continuation of the agency’s enforcement actions against commercial car washes fro

How will the California Consumer Protection Act (CCPA) apply to us? This is a question 0rganizations have asked since the CCPA was first proposed. There remains a number of important questions about the scope of the Golden State’s sweeping privacy law that still need to be answered.

As we reported, in late February, California Attorney General Xavier Becerra and Senator Hannah-Beth Jackson introduced Senate Bill 561, legislation intended to strengthen and clarify the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA).

On April 15, 2019, a California Court of Appeal affirmed summary judgment for the employer in an action alleging class-wide violations of the hyper-technical provisions of the federal Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA).1 Following just shortly after the Ninth Circuit’s pro-employee opinion in a simila

On March 26, 2019, proposed Assembly Bill 5, which would codify the California Supreme Court’s controversial Dynamex decision, was amended to exempt certain types of licensed workers. Just as noteworthy as the types of workers identified as exempt from the standard are the types of employees who wer