Labor & Employment Law Blog

Robert R. Roginson, formerly Chief Counsel for the California Division of Labor Standards Enforcement, has rejoined the firm as a partner in its Employer Services Department. Appointed by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger in October 2007, Mr. Roginson represented and advised the California Labor Commissioner and her staff in all aspects of enforcement and interpretation of California’s labor and wage and hour laws, licensing requirements, and retaliation statutes.

As we previously reported here, on February 8, 2010, the California Court of Appeal published its decision in Jaimez v. DAIOHS USA, Inc., a decision we think is wrongly decided in many ways and that might make it significantly easier for plaintiffs to obtain class certification in wage and hour cases.

As previously reported here, a recent report issued by the Judicial Council of California, Administrative Office of the Courts, Office of Court Research, shows that employment cases were the most frequently filed class actions, representing 29.3% of the class actions filed and that over half of the employment cases filed alleged violations of Labor Code provisions governing payment of wages, rest and meal ...

Today, in Alcazar, et al. v. The Corporation Of The Catholic Archbishop of Seattle, et al., the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals held that a Catholic seminarian's claims against his church for allegedly unpaid wages brought under a Washington state minimum wage statute is barred as a matter of law by the Free Exercise Clause and the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment of the United States Constitution.

A number of California statutes permit plaintiffs who prevail on various wage and hour claims to recover attorney's fees and costs. See, e.g., California Labor Code Sections 218.5, 226 (e), and 1194. Courts are also permitted to enhance such fee awards by applying a multiplier, which can result in an award of attorney's fees significantly higher than what a plaintiffs' attorney would be paid by the hour at market hourly rates.

For a number of years, California employers have been besieged by costly, time consuming class action lawsuits, which frequently take the form of suits alleging violation of California's wage and hour laws. Welcome reform may on the horizon.

On February 23, 2010, in Cumbie v. Woody Woo, Inc., the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeal held that an employer that pays its wait staff a wage greater than the minimum wages does not violate the Fair Labor Standards Act("FLSA") by requiring its wait staff to participate in a tip pool that redistributes approximately 55% to 70% of their tips to employees who are not customarily tipped, such as dishwashers and cooks.

This morning, in Hertz Corp. v. Friend, a unanimous U.S. Supreme Court vacated the decision of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals and held that a corporation’s "principal place of business” under the federal diversity-jurisdiction statute and the Class Action Fairness Act (CAFA):

Labor Code Section 233, sometimes referred to as the "kin care" statute requires employers that provide paid leave to an employee who is ill to permit an employee to use a portion of the employee's accrued and available paid sick leave to care for an ill parent, spouse, child, domestic partner, or child of a domestic partner. The amount of paid leave that can be used for that purpose is limited to the amount of paid leave that would be accrued during six months at the rate of accrual at the time the leave is taken.