The following summaries are of recent published decisions of the California appellate courts, the Ninth Circuit, and the United States Supreme Court. The summaries are presented without regard to whether Severson & Werson represented a party in the case.
Olson, Uber and Postmates stated a viable claim that AB 5, which adopts the ABC test of employment for most employees, violates the Equal Protection Clause even under the rational basis test because of its many exemptions, including of app-based gig companies that perform errand services, which have similar business models to Uber and Postmates. What differentiates this case from… Read More
CCP 203(a)(5) used to provide that any person convicted of a felony could not serve as a juror. Now it provides that persons convicted of a felony cannot serve as a juror while in prison or on parole or while required to register as a sex offender. This decision holds that the sex offender exclusion satisfies the rational basis test… Read More
Plaintiff did not allege an actionable equal protection claim based on a "class of one" discrimination. To state such a claim, the plaintiff must allege facts showing it was treated differently from others who were similarly situated in all material respects. Because they operate a materially different business model, at a significantly different price point, using new and different technology,… Read More
A state cannot refuse to list two same sex spouses as the two parents on their child’s birth certificate. Read More
The Legislature violated two employers’ right to equal protection by carving them out of an exemption it granted all other employers from retroactive liability for certain minimum wage violations; avoiding the United Farmworkers Union’s opposition to the legislation was not a rational basis for treating the two employers differently. Read More
