On May 2, 2019, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in Vazquez v. Jan-Pro Franchising International, Inc. applied the California Supreme Court’s April 2018 Dynamex decision retroactively. In Dynamex, the Supreme Court created the “ABC...
Advising And Defending Businesses
Month: July 2021
A “Class Action” Requires Plaintiffs Show More Than Workers Were Misclassified
On July 15, 2019, a California court of appeal in McCleery v. Allstate Insurance Co. affirmed a trial court’s order that denied the plaintiffs’ motion to certify their wage and hour lawsuit as a class action. The plaintiffs alleged they were engaged by three service...
NLRB Affords Employers Greater Leeway in Addressing Abusive Conduct By Employees
On July 21, 2020, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) in General Motors LLC, established a new standard for determining whether employees have been lawfully disciplined or discharged when making abusive or offensive statements, including profane, racist, and...
New Law Will Prohibit Employers from Discriminating Based on Hairstyle
On July 3, 2019, Governor Newsom signed Senate Bill No. 188 amending California’s anti-discrimination laws so that the definition of “race” will include “traits historically associated with race, including, but not limited to, hair texture and...
Ninth Circuit Makes Clear That Employees Must Be Paid for All Time Worked
On June 28, 2019, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in Rodriguez v. Nike Retail Services, Inc., reversed s summary judgment in favor of Nike in a class action lawsuit seeking compensation for the time employees had to undergo exit inspections every time they left the...
Employee Who is “Potentially Disabled” May Proceed to Trial Over His Claims
On June 10, 2019, a California court of appeal in Ross v. County of Riverside reversed a lower court’s grant of summary judgement in favor of an employer because it found that questions of fact existed over whether an employee was “physically disabled” and entitled to...