On September 30, 2023, California Governor Gavin Newsom signed Senate Bill 553 creating new workplace violence prevention standards in California. The law consists of the first general industry workplace violence prevention requirement in the United States.
Continue Reading Employees’ Rights to Workplace Violence TRO’s Expanded in California
On May 31, 2023, the California Senate passed Senate Bill (“SB”) 553 creating new workplace violence prevention standards in California. Under the Bill, employers are mandated to develop and maintain written prevention plans tailored to their specific workplaces.
Continue Reading California Senate Bill 533 Mandates That Employers Create Workplace Violence Prevention Programs
In January 2021, the Ninth Circuit upheld a 2018 ruling by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (“FMCSA”), which found that federal law preempts California state meal and rest break laws as applied to drivers of property-carrying commercial motor vehicles. A few months later, the United States Supreme Court denied a petition challenging the Ninth Circuit’s decision. We previously wrote about the Ninth Circuit’s ruling, and the Supreme Court’s denial, in a post that you can read here.
Continue Reading Ninth Circuit Confirms FMCSA Preemption of California’s Meal and Rest Break Laws Applies Retroactively
By September 30, 2022, Governor Gavin Newsom is expected to sign Senate Bill 1162, which would amend California Labor Code section 432.3, expanding employers’ pay disclosure and record keeping requirements in California.
Continue Reading California Expected to Adopt New Pay Disclosure Requirements for Employers
On October 4, 2021, the United States Supreme Court denied certiorari on a petition challenging the Ninth Circuit’s ruling that California’s strict meal and rest period rules do not apply to commercial truck drivers engaged in interstate commerce. The Court’s denial of the petition leaves in place a decision that came as a welcome sigh of relief for employers in the trucking industry.
Continue Reading Keep On Truckin’: California’s Meal And Rest Break Rules Preempted By FMCSA
The California Supreme Court has clarified that state whistleblower retaliation claims should not be evaluated under the McDonnell Douglas test, but rather under the test adopted by the California legislature in 2003, thus clarifying decades of confusion among the courts.
Continue Reading California Supreme Court Clarifies Burden of Proof in Whistleblower Retaliation Claims
SB 606, which took effect January 1, 2022, greatly increases the California Division of Occupational Safety and Health’s (“Cal/OSHA’s”) enforcement powers by creating two new violation categories – “enterprise wide” and “egregious” violations.
Continue Reading Cal/OSHA Enters the New Year With Expanded Enforcement Authority
California already has prohibitions on including non-disclosure provisions in certain settlement agreements related to sexual harassment. Now California seeks to expand these prohibitions by enacting the Proposed California SB-331 (“Silenced No More Act”). The new Act aims to prohibit provisions within any agreement that prevent or restrict the disclosure of factual information of claims related to harassment, discrimination, and retaliation. The proposed bill recently passed senate and assembly, and if approved by governor, will become effective January 1, 2022.
Continue Reading California Proposed Legislation – “Silenced No More Act” (SB-331)
Over the past six months, the California Supreme Court as well as the State’s appellate courts have published a number of important decisions in the area of California labor and employment law. The California Supreme Court’s decisions published earlier this year in Donohue v. AMN Services, LLC (2021) 11 Cal.5th 58 and Vazquez v. Jan-Pro Franchising International, Inc. (2021) 10 Cal.5th 944 were previously covered in Hunton Labor & Employment perspectives.
Continue Reading Mid-Year California Case Law Update
Imagine this: you are an employer in California, and you recently hired a new employee. You ran your own background check, which did not turn up any criminal convictions. However, the employee’s job duties include submitting online applications to a government agency, which requires the employee to complete a Live Scan background check with the Department of Justice. The Live Scan reveals that the employee has a past criminal conviction that will prevent her from submitting the applications. You terminate the employee, and she tells you the conviction was judicially dismissed. What do you do?
Continue Reading Dismissed Criminal Convictions in California