California - Wage & Hour

On November 23, 2020, the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing issued additional guidance for employers regarding their requirement to file employee compensation data with the state beginning in March of next year. Pursuant to recently enacted SB 973 , California employers will be re

On November 12, 2020, the California Division of Occupational Safety and Health (Cal/OSHA) announced proposed temporary COVID-19 regulations for review and a vote by the Occupational Safety and Health Standards Board on Thursday, November 19, 2020.

On September 30, 2020, California Governor Gavin Newsom signed California Senate Bill 973 into law as Government Code Title 2, Division 3, Part 2.8, Chapter 10, § 12999. The bill authored by Senator Hannah-Beth Jackson (Santa Barbara) is titled “Employers: annual report: pay data,” and it states tha

On September 30, 2020, Governor Newsom signed into law AB 2231, which limits the “de minimis” exception to California prevailing wage laws to all but the smallest projects. Specifically, the new law limits the de minimis contribution of a public entity to an amount less than $600,000 and less

It appears that employers in the Golden State will be required, starting next year, to collect and submit worker compensation data to the state. Senate Bill 973 ( SB 973 ) has cleared both houses of the state legislature, and Governor Gavin Newsom is expected to sign the bill into law.

In Davidson v. O’Reilly Auto Enterprises, LLC , No. 18-56188 (August 3, 2020), the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals addressed whether a district court abused its discretion in denying class certification for an employee’s claim for improper rest breaks under California law where the employer allegedly

On April 30, 2020, Judge V. Raymond Swope of San Mateo Superior Court granted plaintiffs’ motion for class certification in Jewett et al. v.

As discussed in our previous Legal Alerts, on March 18, 2020, President Trump signed into law the Families First Coronavirus Response Act (“FFCRA”). Generally, the FFCRA requires that private employers with fewer than 500 employees provide emergency paid sick to the extent that employees are unable

A California state appellate court has ruled that the correct rate for paying meal and rest period premiums is one hour of pay at an employee’s base hourly rate, not the regular rate of pay used for calculating overtime wages. This is the first published California case to make this distinction.

Do meal period premiums trigger derivative liability for waiting-time penalties and inaccurate wage statements? The California Court of Appeal has ruled in the negative on the oft-asked question. Naranjo et al. v. Spectrum Security Services, Inc., No. B256232 (Cal. Ct. App. Sept. 26, 2019).

In ZB, N.A. v. Superior Court of San Diego County (Lawson),1 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 California’s Private Attorneys General Act (PAGA). This ruling clarifies the scope o

By way of background, in Palacio v. Jan & Gail’s Care Homes, Inc. (2015) 242 Cal.App.4th 1133, the Fifth District Court of Appeal considered the interplay between subdivisions 11(A) and 11(E) of Wage Order No. 5.

In Brinker Rest. Corp. v. Superior Court (Cal. 2012) 273 P.3d 513, the California Supreme Court explained that an employer must relieve the employee of all duty for the designated meal period, but need not ensure that the employee does not work. In other words, no policing of meal breaks by the empl

On June 14, 2019, a panel of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals heard oral argument in consolidated appeals involving the compensability of pre-exit inspections of employee bags at two retail clothing store chains. While the district courts had granted summary judgment to the employers in both cases

On June 10, 2019, the United States Supreme Court unanimously ruled that state wage and hour laws do not apply to certain drilling rig employees working off the California coast. The rig workers argued that California law required employers to pay them for off-work time spent on the platform, includ

Ruling it lacked jurisdiction to review the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s (FMCSA) decision barring enforcement of California’s meal and rest period rules with respect to interstate motor carriers, a federal district court in California has dismissed a driver’s meal and rest break cla

Judge George H. Wu of the United States District Court for the Central District of California recently dismissed meal and rest break claims brought under the California Labor Code in a class action against motor carrier U.S. Xpress.

For more than 75 years, California’s Wage Order No. 7 has required employers to compensate employees with reporting time pay if employees are required to report for work and in fact show up, but are then provided less than an established minimum number of hours of work or are provided with no work a

Rejecting an argument that the use of the phrase “other nonproductive time” rendered the statute unconstitutionally vague, a California Court of Appeal recently upheld the state’s law regarding compensation of piece-rate workers. Nisei Farmers League v. California Labor & Workforce Dev. Agency, 2019

A California appellate court held an employer’s use of a rounding policy for its non-exempt employees complied with California law because it did not disfavor employees. (Donohue v. AMN Services, LLC (Dec. 10, 2018) Case No. D071865.)