The Court’s answer remains unclear and the potential impact to California Employers can be enormous. As you are certainly aware by now, last Spring the California Supreme Court issued its decision in Dynamex Operations West, Inc. v. Superior Court, which community leaders view as a sea change for California business. No one who does business with independent contractors…
A California Supreme Court decision last week fundamentally alters how courts will classify workers as employees or independent contractors when it comes to compliance with wage orders. The decision could potentially apply to all areas of employment law and generally will make it harder for businesses to prove its workers are independent contractors. The decision,…
All businesses in California must carry workers’ compensation insurance in the event anyone who performs work for a company is injured while working. Unlike other types of insurance, workers’ compensation policy premiums are collected as an estimate during the policy term. Once the policy term ends, an auditor checks the premium amounts by conducting an…
Workers’ compensation insurance, the nation’s oldest social insurance, protects employees and employers if an employee is injured while on the job. If employees get hurt or are sick because of work, an employer must pay workers’ compensation benefits, and those benefits are typically paid through insurance. Because this insurance affects nearly all California employers and…
Under California law, which is more generous to employees than federal law, employees are entitled to specific meal and rest breaks. Indeed, California is one of the few states that require employers to give their workers both meal and rest breaks. In one of our recent landmark cases, heard by the Supreme Court of California,…
Generally speaking, joint employment, or co-employment, is the sharing of control and supervision of an employee’s activity among two or more business entities. A benefit of the increasingly popular employment practice is the ease with which joint employers are often able to hire experts in niche industries, individuals with specialist skills, and/or even replace their…
California’s “Day of Rest” statute continues to plague employers, but a recent case brings with it some good news. Under California Labor Code section 550-558.1, an employer is prohibited “from ‘caus[ing] his employees to work more than six days in seven” unless “the total hours of employment do not exceed 30 hours in any week.”[1]…
Employers, beware: New regulations expand existing transgender protections under California’s Fair Employment and Housing Act (FEHA). FEHA protects individuals who identify as transgender and provides protections on the basis of both gender identity and gender expression — regardless of the person’s assigned sex at birth. California law also specifically protects an employee’s right to appear…
Prior to AB 2337, a law that expands the rights of certain employees, victims of domestic violence, sexual assault, and stalking were protected if: their employers retaliated against them, they took time off, they requested reimbursement for lost wages and work benefits, or sought equitable relief from the Division of Labor Standards Enforcement as it…
Many are questioning whether, under the Trump Administration, the LGBTQ (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgendered) community will be given the same protections provided to it during the Obama administration. The most accurate (and surely frustrating) answer to this question is, “it depends.”