Labor & Employment Law Blog

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.

Again and again, California appellate courts have held various features of employment arbitration agreements to be unconscionable and therefore unenforceable.

As we previously reported here, shortly after Republican Scott Brown's victory in Massachusetts to fill the Senate Seat Edward Kennedy held for 46 years, Senate Republicans joined by a number of Democrats successfully used the filibuster to block President Obama's controversial nomination of attorney Craig Becker to the National Labor Relations Board. One Wall Street Journal commentator has referred to Mr. Becker as "Labor's Secret Weapon."

In Jaimez v. DAIOHS USA, Inc., a decision we think is wrongly decided in many ways, the California Court of Appeal might have made it significantly easier for plaintiffs to obtain class certification in wage and hour cases.

As we previously reported here, on Tuesday, January 19, 2010, Republican Scott Brown defeated Democrat Martha Coakley in a special election to fill the United States Senate seat previously held by Democrat Edward Kennedy for 46 years.