Orange County Employment Lawyers Blog

How Federal Truck Regulations Can Make the Roads of California Less Safe

August 15, 2017 | by Nassiri Law

Conflicts between state and federal law have long been a problem for employers. This is more than a mere inconvenience: at times, it can remove safety rules which protect workers and prevent employers from incurring liability. A new law moving through Congress would remove safety protects in the most dangerous industry for American workers. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, truck drivers recorded more fatal injuries in 2015 than any other occupation.

The Mercury News reports that the bill was written by Representative Jeff Denham, and would prevent states from setting their own rules for truck drivers’ work hours. Thus California would be prohibited from enforcing its own transportation safety laws, which require a thirty-minute meal break after five hours of work, and a ten-minute rest break after four hours of work. Instead, truck drivers driving through California would be subject to federal trucking regulations, which only require a thirty-minute meal break after eight hours of driving. Lobbyists claim that, while at least twenty states have set their own rest break laws, the bill is largely aimed at curbing the influence of California law in the trucking industry. It is also worth noting that Representative Denham’s campaigns have received more than $193,000 from the trucking industry since he first ran for Congress in 2010. Continue Reading ›

New Protections for Transgender and Gender-Nonconforming Employees Take Effect

August 13, 2017 | by Nassiri Law

California has long been a pioneer of gender rights in the workplace. Since 2011, gender expression and gender identity have been protected classes under California’s anti-discrimination law. And on July 1, 2017, new employment protections for transgender and gender-nonconforming employees took effect in California. The Department of Fair Employment and Housing now enforces regulations which expand protections for gender identity and gender expression in the workplace. According to The National Law Review, the following provisions are now effective:

Gender identity has been expanded to include those employees who are transitioning. Activities during the transition phase are protected, such as: changes in name or pronoun usage; use of bathroom facilities; and medical procedures associated with a transition (such as hormone therapy or surgeries). Employers may not discriminate against transitioning employees for engaging in any of these activities, or other actions related to the transition.
Employers may not inquire about, or request documentation about, an employee’s gender, gender expression, or gender identity. Employers can also not request that employees provide such information unless it is on a voluntary basis for record keeping purposes.
Single-occupancy bathroom facilities under an employer’s control must be labeled with gender neutral terms (such as “unisex”, “gender neutral”, or “all gender restroom”). Employees must be allowed to use the facilities which correspond to their gender identity, not the gender assigned to them at birth.
Employees must be allowed to carry out job duties which correspond with their gender expression or gender identity – not the gender assigned to them at birth.

The Press-Enterprise also notes that employers cannot impose any standards of grooming, dress, or appearance which are inconsistent with an employee’s gender identity.

New Job Report Sheds Light on the California Job Market

August 12, 2017 | by Nassiri Law

New data indicates that the California job market – and thus, the state’s overall economy – is slowing. California employers collectively reduced fourteen hundred jobs across the state in June 2017. According to the Los Angeles Times, this is the second month in 2017 in which the state has posted job losses. April 2017 saw an even greater decrease in California’s employment market. Job growth in 2017 is significantly lower than California’s 2016 job growth.

There are many causes to these job losses. Economic consultant Chris Thornberg posits that there are jobs available, but many workers simply cannot afford to live in California. A shortage of available housing has increased California’s notoriously high home prices and rental rates even further. This is certainly true of Silicon Valley: The New York Post reports that many technology companies are expanding operations outside of the pricey area. While Silicon Valley has experienced job losses over the past five years, both Seattle and Austin are experiencing job growth in the technology sector. The Press-Enterprise even speculates on whether California is experiencing another “tech bubble”, and the state’s ability to survive a burst of such an economic bubble. The fact that many technology firms are slowly leaving the state is not a positive sign for the technology industry, not the state’s overall economy. Continue Reading ›

New 2017 California Employment Laws

August 10, 2017 | by Nassiri Law

Every year new employment laws affect California employers. Businesses which are not compliant with such laws face civil liability, fines, and even regulatory sanctions (such as suspension of a business license). CBS Los Angeles reports on new 2017 employment laws which all California employers should take note of:

Increased Minimum Wage: As of January 1, 2017, businesses with twenty-five employees or more must pay workers a minimum of $10.50 per hour. GovDocs reports that this will increase in annual increments to set minimum wage at $15.00 per hour by January 1, 2023. Businesses with fewer than twenty-five employees start at a lower minimum wage of $10.00 per hour, but they, too, will experience annual increases, and be subject to the $15.00 per hour minimum wage requirement by January 1, 2023.

Overtime Laws: The California Department of Industrial Relations describes the current California overtime requirements as follows:

Any employee must be paid one and a half times his or her hourly rate for any hours worked in excess of eight per day, or forty per week. “Time and a half” also applies to the first eight hours worked on the seventh day of a workweek.
Any hours in excess of twelve per day must be compensated at twice the employee’s hourly rate. Double time also applies to any hours beyond eight worked on the seventh day of a workweek.

There are various exceptions to the overtime requirements, and employers should carefully consider these when staffing needs arise.

Equal Treatment Protects Employer in Racial Discrimination Case

August 8, 2017 | by Nassiri Law

Even allegations of racial discrimination can seriously harm a business. Aside from civil liability, criminal liability, fines, and regulatory sanctions, the mere implication of racial discrimination can cause irreparable damage to a company’s reputation and goodwill in the community. Recently, a Rancho Cordova business was able to protect itself from claims of racial discrimination, simply by presenting evidence that it treated all employees equally.

Plaintiff was employed by SGS Testcom from 2005 until 2014, when he was terminated from his position as a database administrator. According to court records, SGS claims that the plaintiff engaged in a “series of actions warranting termination” between May and August of 2014. These included failure to correct an IT database issue during a weekend when he was on call, and two separate occasions of attempting to correct the same database problem during peak user loads, which resulted in system outages and hurt SGS’s reputation with its client. Continue Reading ›

Appellate Court Protects Employer’s Right to Refuse Withdrawal of Employee’s Voluntary Resignation

August 5, 2017 | by Nassiri Law

Wrongful termination is a common claim by former employees, and a common source of liability for employers. Yet the specific circumstances in which wrongful termination laws apply can be confusing at best. Recently, the California Court of Appeals decided that an employer neither violated disability discrimination laws, nor otherwise wrongfully terminated an employee who sought to withdraw her voluntary resignation.

The San Diego Union-Tribune reports that Ruth Featherstone was an employee of Southern California Permanente Medical Group when she returned from a medical leave of absence on December 16, 2013. On December 23, Featherstone resigned, telling her supervisor that “God had told her to do something else”. On December 31, Featherstone asked to rescind her resignation, claiming that she had been under the effects of medication at the time it was tendered. The employer declined.

Featherstone’s lawsuit against the medical group centered on California disability law, which protects an employee from any “adverse employment action” as a result of a disability. The Court ruled that Featherstone had the right to rescind her resignation until Permanente employees processed it. Once accepted, however, Permanente was under no obligation to allow her to rescind the resignation. Permanente was also under no continuing duty to accommodate Featherstone’s disability and purportedly altered mental state once it accepted her resignation. Continue Reading ›

Three Things to Know About California Non-Compete Agreements

August 3, 2017 | by Nassiri Law

Non-compete agreements (NCAs) are an increasingly popular tool of employers in today’s global and competitive economy. As a general rule, California law does not allow for enforcement of NCAs against an employee after he or she leaves the company. This anti-NCA stance is, in fact, so well known that one technology company (Veeva) has sued its rivals, asking the court to declare that the NCAs they make employees sign violate California law. The Recorder report that the rival companies claim that Veeva is merely after their intellectual property. Regardless of the politics behind the lawsuit, it is almost inevitable that the non-compete agreements will be deemed unenforceable against California employees.

Despite the broad prohibition against NCAs in California, there are other tools available to employers looking to protect intellectual property. There are also several important applications of NCA law which employers are wise to understand. Continue Reading ›

Employees Now Have Better Access to Evidence in Lawsuits Against an Employer

August 1, 2017 | by Nassiri Law

Employees are often placed at a disadvantage in workplace litigation due to the superior bargaining power of their employers. Thus, when an employer violates workplace laws, a common strategy for plaintiffs is to gather together a group of employees who have suffered from the same violation in order to file a class action lawsuit. By forming a group, the plaintiffs increase their financial power in litigation, as well as their bargaining power during settlement negotiations.

A new case decided by the California Supreme Court on July 13, 2017 makes it easier for plaintiffs to find other employees who may have been impacted by workplace violations. In a rare unanimous decision, the Court determined that a plaintiff does not need to show that his or her case has merit before gaining access to the employer’s records for employee contact information. Instead, this information must be provided at the onset of litigation, before the court either makes a determination of merit, or certifies a class of plaintiffs (which must occur before class action litigation can proceed).

JD Supra reports that the decision made only two small concessions to employee privacy concerns. First, the Court ratified a rule of case law which allows employers to notify affected employees about the potential release of their information and opt out of having their information released. Second, the Court also endorsed a prohibition against employee contact information being disclosed outside of the confines of a specific lawsuit. Continue Reading ›

Company Culture Causes Sexual Harassment in California

July 28, 2017 | by Nassiri Law

Sexual harassment is a problem faced by many employers. But what is less often understood is the role that company culture can play in fostering sexual harassment in the workplace – and protecting its perpetrators. Without understanding the systemic causes of sexual harassment, employers cannot adequately eradicate it within their businesses, nor protect themselves from the liability attendant to sexual harassment claims. Occupations which have been traditionally filled by a male-dominate workforce are particularly susceptible to legal claims of sexual discrimination and harassment.

The Technology Sector Becomes an Example of What Not to Do

Other male-dominated industries can learn from the legal and publicity problems faced by the technology sector. For years, Silicon Valley has been a microcosm of sexual harassment culture. Wired magazine describes the prevalence of sexual harassment in Silicon Valley as being an “open secret.” This open secret is a culture that has lasted for decades, and has not been changed by human resource policies, nor by extensive litigation and judgments against behemoth employers. The culture of male dominance is simply too pervasive to respond to a few settlements that pale in comparison to the massive profits of large tech companies. Continue Reading ›

California Supreme Court Allows Employers Greater Flexibility in Adhering to “Day of Rest” Statute

July 24, 2017 | by Nassiri Law

A recent ruling by the California Supreme Court on May 8, 2017, makes it easier for employers to comply with the state’s “day of rest” statute. The enhanced flexibility can benefit both employers working to accommodate their business needs, and employees who desire more flexibility to accommodate their personal activities with their work schedule and responsibilities.

The California “day or rest” statute prohibits employers from causing employees to work more than six in seven days. The San Francisco Business Times reports that, in Mendoza v. Nordstrom, the Court clarified that the day of rest is guaranteed for each work week, rather than any given period of seven days. Previously, it was unclear which measure had to be used for purposes of calculating the day off. Some employers would go to great lengths to accommodate every seven-day period on a rolling basis. Now, they need only to set a defined work week, and ensure that employees have one day off within that week.

The ruling also gave employers the option of scheduling employees for more than seven days in a row if they are given time off equivalent to one day per work week. This, too, allows greater flexibility in scheduling. It also appears to signal the Court’s awareness of the realities of the contemporary American workforce. Continue Reading ›