Bay Area Employment Law Blog
New California sick leave rules go into effect soon
Almost all California employers must offer employees paid sick time under the new "Healthy Workplaces, Healthy Families Act," which goes into effect on July 1, 2015. How much time must be offered depends on whether employees are given leave right away, or whether it...
Payments for employment claims are almost always taxable
It's increasingly common for lawyers to try to shield payments in employment cases from taxes by characterizing them as payments for "personal injury." After a recent decision by a California appellate court, they shouldn't. Payments for personal, physical injuries...
California law prohibits harassment of employees of contractor companies
California courts continue to extend sex harassment protections to all categories of workers, most recently employees of contractors working at employer job sites. In Hirst v. City of Oceanside, an employee of a phlebotomy company working for the Oceanside Police...
California expands definition of unlawful sex harassment
California has officially clarified that its employment discrimination law (the Fair Employment and Housing Act, "FEHA") prohibits harassing comments that in any way relate to sex, even if they are not motivated by sexual desire. California Governor Jerry Brown signed...
Must be able to hire and fire to be considered a “supervisor”, says U.S. Supreme Court
Resolving long-standing confusion over how to determine who is a supervisor under Title VII, the Court adopted the more stringent, pro-employer standard that people must have authority to take adverse employment actions (e.g., hiring, firing, demotions, etc.) to be...
Employees working 24-hour shifts not entitled to be paid for designated sleep time
So long as they provide suitable sleeping quarters and have clear contracts, employers can refuse to pay employees working 24-hour shifts for time they can be sleeping. In Mendiola v. CPS Security Solutions, Inc., a California appellate court clarified that all...
Time spent doing both management and routine work should be paid overtime
To paraphrase Mr. Miyagi from the (original) "Karate Kid", work activities that are entirely exempt are okay; those that are entirely non-exempt are okay; but those that straddle the fence will likely get employers squished, just like grapes. In Heyen v. Safeway,...
Random sampling no shortcut for class action certification
Continuing to crack down on overtime class actions, a California appellate court has ruled that random employee sampling cannot establish cases as class actions if the entire class of employees is not provably similar. In Dailey v. Sears, Roebuck and Co., a group of...
Mothers can receive additional pregnancy leave as a disability accommodation
Employers cannot reflexively fire working mothers who exhaust the four months of leave they are entitled to under California's Pregnancy Disability Leave Law ("PDLL"). Even if they have used all their PDLL leave, mothers can still be entitled to additional time off as...
No damages for employees fired for both lawful and unlawful reasons
Further muddying the issue of "mixed motives" in employment discrimination, the California Supreme Court ruled that, when employees are fired for both lawful and unlawful reasons (i.e., with mixed motives), they can seek injunctions and recover attorneys' fees but not...