New class action and California Private Attorneys General Act (PAGA) filings have grown exponentially in recent years and reached record numbers in 2023. This trend is raising concerns for California employers as the state...more
With high-profile challenges to employer diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives and “reverse discrimination” claims on the rise, a case reinforcing the circuit split over whether plaintiffs from a “majority” group...more
1/4/2024
/ Appellate Courts ,
Civil Rights Act ,
Diversity ,
Diversity and Inclusion Standards (D&I) ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Employment Discrimination ,
Employment Litigation ,
Environmental Social & Governance (ESG) ,
Evidence ,
Evidentiary Standards ,
Reverse Discrimination ,
Sexual Orientation ,
Title VII
On October 10, 2023, Governor Gavin Newsom signed into law a bill that will allow plaintiffs in California to continue pursuing claims during the pendency of an appeal to an order denying a petition to compel arbitration. The...more
Employers in Washington are facing a flurry of class actions alleging violations of the state’s new pay transparency law. While it is too early to gauge the viability of the claims, employers doing business in Washington may...more
10/17/2023
/ Class Action ,
Damages ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Employment Litigation ,
Governor Inslee ,
Injunctive Relief ,
Job Ads ,
Pay Transparency ,
Posting Requirements ,
Putative Class Actions ,
State Labor Laws ,
Wage and Hour
On August 18, 2023, in Hamilton v. Dallas County, the full Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals upended a longstanding precedent, significantly broadening the types of adverse employment actions that could give rise to an...more
8/23/2023
/ Adverse Employment Action ,
Anti-Discrimination Policies ,
Appeals ,
Civil Rights Act ,
Commission on Human Rights ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Employment Discrimination ,
Employment Litigation ,
En Banc Review ,
Gender Discrimination ,
Precedential Opinion ,
Public Employees ,
Remand ,
Reversal ,
Terms and Conditions ,
Title VII ,
Wage and Hour ,
Work Schedules
In a recent decision, a Georgia appellate panel held that an employee nonsolicitation covenant that limits what parties can do following the end of a business relationship must have an explicit geographic limitation to be...more
In a recent decision, a federal trial court in Illinois allowed an employee’s tortious interference claim to continue against his former employer alleging it had exaggerated the reach of a noncompete agreement that he had...more
A California appellate court recently ruled that an employee may pursue claims under California’s Private Attorneys General Act (PAGA) that her former employer violated the state’s mandatory paid sick leave law.
On...more
On February 22, 2022, the Superior Court of New Jersey Appellate Division ruled that a hospital employee discharged for disciplinary reasons was not entitled to payment of accrued paid time off (PTO) because the hospital had...more
On February 22, 2023, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that a former oil rig employee who was paid a daily rate that totaled more than $200,000 annually is entitled to overtime pay under the Fair Labor Standards...more
On February 17, 2023, the Supreme Court of Illinois held claims under the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act (Privacy Act or BIPA) accrue on each and every scan or collection and further allowed so-called per scan...more
On January 23, 2023, a Massachusetts federal judge ruled that a group of former employees had not shown that a grocery store chain unlawfully retaliated against them for opposing a dress code policy that prohibited the...more
On February 15, 2023, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals blocked a 2020 California law that attempted to prohibit employers from requiring employees and job applicants to agree to arbitration as a condition of employment. The...more
2/17/2023
/ Arbitration ,
Arbitration Agreements ,
Employment Contract ,
Employment Litigation ,
Employment Policies ,
Federal Arbitration Act ,
Governor Newsom ,
Hiring & Firing ,
Mandatory Arbitration Clauses ,
Preemption ,
State Labor Laws ,
Unenforceable Contract Terms
On February 2, 2023, the Supreme Court of the State of Illinois ruled that all claims under Section 15 of the state’s Biometric Information Privacy Act (Privacy Act or BIPA) have a five year statute of limitations.
The...more
2/6/2023
/ Appeals ,
Biometric Information ,
Biometric Information Privacy Act ,
Consent ,
Damages ,
Data Collection ,
Data Privacy ,
Employment Litigation ,
Employment Policies ,
Fingerprints ,
Former Employee ,
IL Supreme Court ,
Privacy Laws ,
State Privacy Laws ,
Statute of Limitations
On November 7. 2022, the Supreme Court of the United States declined to review a case by a Georgia fire chief alleging she was discharged for being transgender in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the...more
12/6/2022
/ Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) ,
Appeals ,
Civil Rights Act ,
Dismissals ,
Employment Discrimination ,
Employment Litigation ,
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) ,
Fort Bend County Texas v Davis ,
Petition for Writ of Certiorari ,
Title VII ,
Transgender ,
Verification Requirements
On October 12, 2022, the Supreme Court of the United States heard oral arguments in a case regarding whether an oil rig worker who performed supervisory duties and was paid more than $200,000 per year on a day rate...more
On September 12, 2022, the California Court of Appeal held that employees bringing successful rest break and meal period claims are entitled to recover attorneys’ fees under California Labor Code section 218.5. The...more
On August 26, 2022, Chief U.S. District Judge Matthew Brann for the United States District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania dismissed a putative class action representing approximately 100 healthcare...more
9/2/2022
/ Coronavirus/COVID-19 ,
Dismissal With Prejudice ,
Dismissals ,
Employment Litigation ,
Employment Policies ,
Healthcare Workers ,
Putative Class Actions ,
Religious Accommodation ,
Religious Discrimination ,
Vaccinations ,
Virus Testing ,
Workplace Safety
The panel of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals that largely upheld California’s law banning mandatory arbitration agreements in the employment context just withdrew its decision. On August 22, 2022, two of the three...more
8/29/2022
/ Appeals ,
Arbitration ,
Arbitration Agreements ,
Chamber of Commerce ,
Corporate Counsel ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Employment Contract ,
Employment Litigation ,
Hiring & Firing ,
Mandatory Arbitration ,
Mandatory Arbitration Clauses ,
Preliminary Injunctions ,
Private Attorneys General Act (PAGA) ,
State Labor Laws
The COVID-19 pandemic did not slow down the pace of new California Private Attorneys General Act (PAGA) letters being filed with the state Labor Workforce Development Agency (LWDA), according to filing data. Instead, there...more
On June 15, 2022, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled in favor of Viking River Cruises Inc. in a case over whether it could use an arbitration agreement to force a lawsuit brought under California’s Private Attorneys...more