employment lawyers in California

They might share a name, hours, and overarching rules, but according to the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, 7-Eleven franchisees are not direct employees of 7-Eleven. In the original employment lawsuit complaint, filed by a group of four franchisees, plaintiffs pointed to 7-Eleven’s restrictive rules, alleging they were unable to run a truly independent franchise and therefore qualified them as employees of the parent company. But the court ruled plaintiffs did not sufficiently demonstrate an employee-employer relationship. Our employment attorneys experienced in wage and hour lawsuits know this could set a significant precedent for current and future cases involving franchises.

According to National Law Review, plaintiffs attempted to make a case based on a few factors:

The requirement that franchisees remain open 364 days a year for 24 hours a day.
7-Eleven distributes payments to all employees.
7-Eleven sets rules for pay practices, discipline, terminations, and performance appraisals.

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 ›

Articles Tagged with employment lawyers in California

Court: Franchisees Not Employees of National Chain

Equal Treatment Protects Employer in Racial Discrimination Case