Orange County Employment Lawyers Blog

Uber Employment Lawsuit Challenges Independent Contractor Status

August 14, 2015 | by Nassiri Law

A class action lawsuit filed in California’s Northern District Court asserts the drivers who work for Uber are wrongly classified as independent contractors when in fact they should be employees.

The ride-sharing service, one of several to crop up in recent years, shot back with a motion asserting the workers are independent contractors, as they have little or nothing in common with one another, aside from having downloaded the company’s digital application at some point in the last six years.

In California, there are approximately 160,000 Uber drivers, and many hundreds of thousands more across the country. Drivers do download an app, which is then accessed by customers who need transportation. In this multi-billion dollar on-demand economy, there are numerous pending cases that question the classification of workers. Continue Reading ›

California Employment Rights Championed for Cheerleaders

August 12, 2015 | by Nassiri Law

Professional cheerleaders are now recognized by California law as “employees,” entitled to minimum wages and overtime pay. It also provides them with sick leave, meal breaks and a host of other labor protections that are available to the team and other staffers.

Now, instead of classifying them as “independent contractors,” they are deemed “employees,” with all the rights and benefits that title affords.

The legislation that changed their status, AB202, was signed by Gov. Jerry Brown after being introduced by Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez. She was motivated by a wage-and-hour lawsuit filed by the Oakland Raiderette cheerleaders. Gonzalez said short-changing women in any profession should not be tolerated, and cheerleaders were being treated as glorified volunteers. This was despite the long hours, extensive control the team had over almost every aspect of cheerleaders’ lives and the fines that were levied for minor infractions, such as gaining more than four pounds or forgetting to bring pom-poms to practice. Continue Reading ›

Allen v. Chicago – Overtime Pay for Smartphone Use After-Hours

August 10, 2015 | by Nassiri Law

Many workers in this digital age are familiar with the pings and rings of their smartphones, alerting them to work-related issues after work hours. Most assume it’s simply a part of the job, and few file for overtime compensation related to these expected duties.

But that may change, depending on the potential precedent set by a case slated for bench trial this month. Allen v. Chicago, before the U.S. District Court in the Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division, is one of the first of its kind to proceed to the trial phase. That’s because most similar cases are settled out-of-court before going to trial.

This class action employment lawsuit was filed by a police sergeant on behalf of himself and other similarly situated individuals who worked at the Chicago Police Department. Continue Reading ›

Burton v. Freescale – Retaliation for Workers’ Compensation Claims

August 8, 2015 | by Nassiri Law

Employees who file workers’ compensation claims may run the risk of possible retaliation by employers who want to avoid paying the associated costs. The majority of states have laws that prohibit companies from lashing out against workers who have filed workers’ compensation claims.

Workers seeking to prove retaliation have to show:

He or she was an employee entitled to receive benefits under California’s workers’ compensation law;
He or she took some protected action (i.e., filing a workers’ compensation claim)
He or she suffered an adverse employment action (i.e., termination, denial of promotion, etc.)
The employer was motivated to carry out this adverse action by employee engaging in protected activity.

It’s not an easy threshold to meet, and that’s why having an experienced employment lawyer on your side can be critical. Continue Reading ›

Disney Accused of Racial Discrimination of Security Guards

August 6, 2015 | by Nassiri Law

In recent years, Disney World in Florida has been the subject of half a dozen similar lawsuits of discrimination on the basis of race, religion and national origin involving some of its 1,000 security workers.

So far, none of the cases has succeeded. A jury ruled against one plaintiff whose case went to trial, and three others were dismissed voluntarily by the plaintiff for either personal or financial reasons. But those who study employment law as well as those who practice it – both in Florida and here in California (home to Disneyland in Anaheim) recognize that six lawsuits over the course of three years – all by security guards and all for the same general reasons – alerts to a red flag of potentially a more serious problem. Continue Reading ›

Wages v. Stuart Mgmt. – 8th Circuit Weighs Pregnancy Discrimination Claim

August 4, 2015 | by Nassiri Law

In California, employers must provide up to four months of disability leave for workers who are disabled due to pregnancy, childbirth or some related medical condition. This time doesn’t have to be taken all at once, nor does it apply solely to full-time workers.

A woman need not be totally incapacitated or bedridden to be deemed disabled by pregnancy, but she must be unable to perform one or more essential job functions without undue risk to her or the child. Any periodic absences prior to childbirth can be subtracted from that four-month time frame.

The law also bars harassment on the basis of pregnancy and requires companies to provide reasonable accommodates for pregnant workers as necessary. Some of these protections went into effect in California as late as 2012. Many other states lack this kind of broad worker protection, but many employees continue to fight for their rights for working women in the course of their pregnancy.

In the recent case of Wages v. Stuart Mgt., the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit weighed one such pregnancy discrimination case. Plaintiff alleged employer violated her rights under the federal Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA). Continue Reading ›

Denial of Same-Sex Spousal Benefits Sparks Lawsuit Against Chain

August 2, 2015 | by Nassiri Law

In the case of Cote v. Wal-Mart, Inc., filed within the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts, alleges the big box chain store engaged in gender discrimination when it refused to extend spousal benefits to the wife of a female employee.

This argument hasn’t yet been vetted in courts, though that is the stance of the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. In this case, plaintiff filed a complaint with the EEOC last year, as a prerequisite to filing her lawsuit against her former employer. The EEOC determined Wal-Mart had engaged in discrimination by denying benefits to the worker’s wife.

According to news reports of the case, the employee sued the company on the basis of its prior policy of denying health care insurance to husbands and wives of gay and lesbian employees. Plaintiff seeks class action certification for her lawsuit, which was filed in Boston, Mass. Continue Reading ›

Rock v. Levinski – First Amendment Rights of Employees

July 28, 2015 | by Nassiri Law

One of the most dearly held rights Americans have is stated in the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution: The right of free speech.

It allows us to speak our minds without fear of government infringement.

But that’s just the thing: It pertains to government infringement, not infringement by private companies. And what’s more, if the government is the employer, the worker may be limited in what he or she can say without facing termination as well.

The circumstances under which speech may be protected will be based on the kind and purpose of the speech. So for example, if a worker for an airline speaks out about a major safety concern that’s been ignored by company officials, that could be considered protected speech because it is carried out in the interest of public safety. That worker may even have whistleblower protection. However, if that same worker puts the airline CEO on blast on the worker’s social media page, that might not be protected, and the company could have the right to take adverse employment action. Continue Reading ›

Perez v. D. Howes, LLC – Misclassification of Farm Worker Employees

July 25, 2015 | by Nassiri Law

Somewhere between 1 and 3 million workers migrate from various locations across the world – usually Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean – to work as laborers in U.S. farms.

Vital as these workers are to the labor force, they are often mistreated, underpaid and sometimes even abused. Employers sometimes use threats and intimidation to silence these workers from reporting workplace injuries, wage theft violations and sexual abuse.

Although these workers aren’t the only labor force to suffer from a concept known as “misclassification,” they certainly are subjected to it quite often.

Misclassification refers to an illegal practice by employers of classifying workers as “independent contractors” rather than “employees” to evade paying workers’ compensation insurance premiums, benefits, certain taxes and fair wages. Continue Reading ›

Hansler v. Lehigh Valley Hosp. Network – Rights Under FMLA

July 22, 2015 | by Nassiri Law

The Family and Medical Leave Act – also routinely referred to as “FMLA” – entitles most workers to take unpaid, job-protected leave for specified family and medical reasons. Workers can take up to 12 months in a given period, and it can be for anything from the birth of a child (within one year) to the serious health condition of a spouse to an illness that renders the employee unable to work.

What many people don’t realize about this act is that the time to which they are entitled doesn’t necessarily need to be taken all at once.

For example, if a worker injures her back and her doctor grants permission to take periodic time off work as needed for pain, there are allowances for that.

Unfortunately, many employers don’t realize this either, and workers may face disciplinary action or even wrongful termination for exercising these rights. Continue Reading ›