Unionized prison guards’ pay is governed by the union’s memorandum of understanding, which was passed as state legislation, not general state wage and hour laws; but those general laws do apply to non-unionized prison workers. Read More
The Fair Employment and Housing Act’s one year statute of limitations starts to run from the date of termination of employment of a faculty member, rather than the earlier date on which he was denied tenure for allegedly discriminatory reasons. Read More
The trial court improperly granted summary judgment to employer defendant on employee plaintiff's claim of FEHA-prohibited retaliation for supporting a co-worker's complaint of sex discrimination, after she provided sufficient evidence of (1) adverse employment actions and (2) retaliatory motive. Read More
Suits under the Private Attorney Act are unlike class actions in that plaintiffs cannot belatedly add new plaintiffs to carry on the suit in place of the original named plaintiffs, if it turns out the original plaintiffs’ claims fail. Read More
Claims for statutory damages or penalties payable to individual employees are arbitrable; only Private Attorney General Act claims for civil penalties payable to the state are not arbitrable. Read More
In a Private Attorney General Act suit, the plaintiff is entitled, as a matter of course, to discovery of identification information of all employees affected by the employer’s alleged violations of wage and hour laws. Read More
When an employer's policy states that an employee does not begin to earn vacation pay until after a full year's employment, the employer does not owe an employee any vacation pay if employment is terminated less than a year after the date of initial employment. Read More
A foreign national who was invited to the US to work for defendant was not an "intern" or "trainee" during the 11 months he worked before securing a green card, because the work he did consisted of typical work tasks rather than education; so he was entitled to minimum wages under both federal and state law during this period. Read More
Trial court did not abuse its discretion in denying class certification in this suit for overtime compensation by claims examiners, since plaintiff had not shown that it could prove, by common evidence, that all of the claims examiners in the proposed class actually worked overtime; hence there was no preponderance of common issues. Read More
Newspaper home delivery carriers were properly found to be employees, covered by Labor Code wage, hour, and expense reimbursement provisions, not independent contractors. Read More
Bank’s home loan underwriter was not an exempt “administrative” employee for purposes of the Fair Labor Standards Act and hence was entitled to overtime compensation. Read More
District court erred in dismissing plaintiff’s employment discrimination suit even though it had become moot, since plaintiff could still receive nominal damages and have his dignity interest vindicated even though he no longer worked for employer. Read More
Employee’s introduction of evidence of discriminatory remarks by an upper-level supervisor should have enabled him to survive summary judgment on his claim for discriminatory termination due to his sexual orientation, even though employer also introduced evidence of a non-pretextual non-discriminatory motive as well; mixed motives do not absolve the employer. Read More
An employee may sue his employer's outside counsel for conspiring with Immigration & Customs Enforcement to have him deported as an unregistered alien in retaliation for his having filed suit against the employer alleging a violation of the Fair Labor Standards Act. Read More
The federal Age Discrimination in Employment Act applies to all state and local government agencies without regard to the number of workers they employ, though it applies to private employers only if they have 20 or more workers. Read More
An EEOC administrative subpoena for names, addresses and phone numbers of co-workers should have been enforced as the information was relevant to the charge the EEOC was investigating, allowing the EEOC to contact co-workers to weigh whether the employer’s test was discriminatory. Read More
Arbitration clause in employee’s contract with staffing agency could be enforced by the employer to whom the staffing agency assigned him, because plaintiff’s claims arose out of his employment contract and were intimately intertwined with it, thus estopping him from asserting the employer was not a party to the agreement. Read More
The Labor Code requirement that an employer give an employee a day of rest after six days of work applies on a calendar week basis, not a rolling basis, and applies during any week in which the employee works more than six hours in any one day. Read More
In defending a claim that employees’ pay disparity violates the Equal Pay Act, an employer may justify the disparities by showing that it results from differences between the pay the compared employees earned in prior jobs, so long as the reliance on prior wages effectuates some business policy of the employer and the employer uses evidence of prior wages reasonably. Read More
Plaintiff-employee who quit her job during a psychotic episode induced by prescription drugs could not state a claim for disability discrimination when her former employer denied her later request for reinstatement; the former employer owed no duty to rehire her once the former employment relationship ceased. Read More
