Labor & Employment Law Blog

The courts in Los Angeles are creating controversy over attorneys’ fees awards—a tale in three parts.

In Pollock v. Kelso, 107 Cal. App. 5^th 1190 (2025), Pollock sued for sexual harassment and racial discrimination. The trial court granted summary judgment, and the court of appeal affirmed. The California Supreme court reversed, and on remand, the Court of Appeal awarded appellate costs to Pollock.  Pollock moved for $526,475.63 in attorneys’ fees, and the court awarded $493,577.10.  Defendant appealed.  The summary judgment motion was reversed, and a trial was set.  The parties settled the case except for the appeal on the attorneys’ fees, and filed a stipulation with the court stating, “The court DISMISSES this entire action with prejudice as to all parties and all causes of action.”

Wow, an employment lawyer arguing to embrace love in the workplace. Did he fail sexual harassment 101? Has he not read the headlines about Blake Lively? Employers, as Valentine’s Day approaches, may be contemplating writing policies regarding workplace romances, conducting training on appropriate interactions in the workplace, and even going so far as to prepare love contracts for workplace romances to ensure they are consensual. I, on the other hand, want to know when did love became a four-letter word? Is there a place for love in the workplace? I think the answer is a resounding yes!

Employees widely use AI often without the knowledge of management. This secret use of AI has been referred to as “shadow IT” in an article by Business Insider. AI is typically used for either content creation or content editing. Content creation includes such tasks as ideation, research assistance, and summarization. Content editing comprises spell check, grammar check, and use of a thesaurus for synonyms. As the use of AI becomes more pervasive in the workplace, one of the big downsides of using AI is its reliability. “Hallucinations” occur frequently when using AI, which causes employers to question the trustworthiness of the work product. It is becoming more challenging to distinguish between human and machine writers as AI writing tools advance.

In the recently decided Howell v. State Department of State Hospitals, 2024 WL 4997719 (December 5, 2024), the trial court and court of appeal upheld a Scrooge-like verdict by a jury that resulted in Ms. Howell’s receiving NO emotional distress damages and limited attorneys’ fees even though the jury found she had been discriminated against based on a mental disability.  A closer examination of why Ms. Howell found a lump of coal in her holiday stocking is merited.

Plaintiff attorneys have deluged the courts with wage and hour class actions and PAGA lawsuits.  The first question an employee advocate asks of their potential client is, “can I see a pay stub?”  Instead of agreeing to represent employees for their harassment or wrongful termination claim, they convince the disgruntled ex-employee to act as a representative for a PAGA or class action for improper wage and hour practices. 

The pandemic opened Pandora's box for many employers including having employees work remotely.  Remote work has created a plethora of management issues including communications for employees working different schedules over various time zones, technology and security challenges for the home office, dress code for zoom calls, and a myriad of legal considerations such as time keeping from the home rather than from the office, enforceability of non-compete agreements, reimbursing employees for costs associated with home as the office, 1099 misclassification, unemployment compensation, workers' compensation, licensure requirements, and unexpected state and local taxes to name a few.  As Gen Z has begun to supplant Boomers in the workplace, Zoomers need to be given flexibility in their job or bouncing to the next job is a harsh reality.  As a result, many employers are providing employees with the option to work remotely as an employment benefit of the post-pandemic world.

One of the many downsides to the current pandemic is that so many people have exhausted their family leave taking care of themselves as well as sick family members.  The non-COVID-19-related issues of families have not gone away, however.  Who is taking parents to chemo treatments?  Who is taking spouses to physical therapy?  How do employees and employers deal with these issues?  If family leave is no longer an option, employees may turn to associational discrimination and reasonable accommodation of associational discrimination if they are denied time off to take care of family members.

 In a 7-2 decision authored by Justice Alito, the U.S. Supreme Court reaffirmed the ministerial exception set forth in Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church and School v. EEOC, 565 U.S. 171 (2012).  (Our Lady of Guadalupe School v. Morrissey-Berru, Case Nos. 19-267 and 19-348 (July 8, 2020)(“OLG”)).

In Anthony v. TRAX International Corp. (April 17, 2020, Case No. 18-15662), the Ninth Circuit held the limitation of using after-acquired evidence to merely mitigate damages did not extend to evidence used to show that an Americans with Disabilities Act (“ADA”) plaintiff is not a qualified individual, an element of a prima facie case of disability discrimination.