National Law Journal says it compiles the list to "spotlight those making a big difference," and describes those chosen for the honor as having "shown a deep passion and perseverance in pursuit of their mission, having achieved remarkable successes along the way."

Time rounding is the practice of adjusting an employee’s hours worked (either up or down) to a certain increment of time. Some employers opt to round time entries for increased administrative ease and efficiency in recording and calculating hours worked. The most conservative approach an employer can adopt is to pay per actual time punches and not round at all, but time rounding can be legally compliant under certain conditions.

Earlier this year, the California Supreme Court set forth a new “ABC” test for determining whether someone working for a business is an employee or an independent contractor. In Dynamex, the court held that the ABC test applies in claims brought by workers under Industrial Welfare Commission Wage Orders but did not decide whether the test would apply to non-wage order claims. The wage orders regulate the minimum working conditions for employees in various industries (with different wage orders applying to different industries). In making its decision, the Dynamex court rejected the multi-factor standard that the California Supreme Court had previously adopted in S.G. Borello & Sons, Inc. v. Department of Industrial Relations, but it remained unclear whether the Borello test could still apply to cases involving non-wage order claims.

By now employers know that rest breaks must be paid and if an employee is paid on a piece-rate basis, the rest break must be compensated at the higher of minimum wage, or their average hourly rate for the workweek. In Certified Tire and Service Centers Wage and Hour Cases, Plaintiffs sued their employer, Certified Tire, claiming that their pay plan was an “activity-based” pay system and did not separately compensate them for non-productive time and rest periods because it allowed them to earn a higher hourly rate based on production. They argued that because they could not increase their hourly rate while working on certain activities or taking rest breaks, this time was unpaid. The employees claimed Certified Tire had wrongly averaged their earnings to contend they were being paid minimum wage for all hours worked, such as in Armenta v. Osmose, Inc.

As we previously reported, back in 2016, OSHA issued a rule that amended its regulations (29 C.F.R. § 1904.35(b)(1)(iv)) to prohibit employers from retaliating against employees for reporting work-related injuries or illnesses. The subsequent interpretive guidance on this regulation discouraged employers from implementing certain aspects of workplace safety incentive programs and post-incident drug testing. On October 11, 2018, OSHA issued a new memorandum to clarify its position on these issues and to supersede prior guidance and interpretations that it issued.

Celebrating 40 years of advocacy and service to the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) senior community, SAGE has strengthened its national Board of Directors with the addition of Scali Rasmussen Partner Jeffrey Erdman.

New rules, effective September 13, 2018, have modernized how your service department can provide and receive approval for repair estimates and additional work requests. The new rules also allow you to provide updates on and store work order and authorization information electronically.

In a simple asset purchase agreement (an “APA”), a seller makes warranties about assets, a buyer purchases them, and if the warranties turn out to be inaccurate, the buyer’s main recourse is to collect damages from the seller. However, in the sale of an existing dealership business, where the selling entity often exits the business and may even dissolve shortly after a sale, a buyer may worry that the entity and its owners have less incentive to stand behind their representations regarding the assets and operations of the business. The risks of purchasing the operating assets of an existing dealership are numerous and difficult to estimate: the fixtures, equipment, inventory, and any real estate purchased may have unknown and costly problems, the prior dealer’s employment policies and practices could be non-compliant, and there may be unknown claims resulting from questionable prior customer dealings that have not yet come to light.

The U.S. Supreme Court validated an employer’s ability to impose mandatory arbitration agreements as a condition of employment in Epic Systems Corp. v. Lewis. The implications of this decision was recently demonstrated in the Ninth Circuit’s August 25, 2018 decision of O’Connor v. Uber, highlighting the power of a properly drafted arbitration agreement as a pro-active measure for employers.

Many litigators will tell you that the best defense is a good offense. As a result, it is always important for defense attorney to assess whether a cross-complaint should be filed when responding to any lawsuit filed against his or her client, asserting any counterclaims the defendant may have against the plaintiff whether related to the plaintiff’s claims or not. Often, bringing pressure down on the plaintiff with counterclaims will make the plaintiff reevaluate their commitment to prosecuting the case and may facilitate early settlement of the action.

In May of this year the U.S. House followed the Senate in passing a measure that effectively ends Obama-era guidance aimed at limiting dealerships' retail margins on auto loans. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau issued the guidance in 2013 on the basis that flexibility in retail lending margins may have led to minority borrowers being charged more on loans as compared to other similarly situated borrowers.

If you haven’t been a defendant in a class action, or a lawyer working on one, you likely have not heard about the Class Action Fairness Act (“CAFA”). Even when told that the purpose of the Act is to allow class actions that meet certain criteria to be tried in federal court, the significance of that often isn’t clear. The long-story short is that the consensus is that federal court is the preferable place to be as a defendant in a class action, and CAFA makes it much easier to get there.

As is tradition in California, the end of September brings a flurry of activity as the Governor evaluates which of the Legislature’s bills to sign into law and which to veto. In the last year of his fourth and final term, but the first full year after the rocketing of the #MeToo movement into the public consciousness, Governor Edmund G. (“Jerry”) Brown, Jr. reviewed legislation addressing sexual harassment from myriad directions. His choices to enact many of the bills, seven of which are featured here, will have both immediate and lasting impact on California employers.

Firm Partner, Bert Rasmussen, discusses the significance of our successful challenge to General Motors in this article, originally published in Automotive Buy Sell Report.

In the recent employment class action case of Fritsch v. Swift Transportation Company of Arizona, LLC, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that future recoverable attorneys’ fees can be considered in determining the amount in controversy under the Class Action Fairness Act of 2005 (“CAFA”). The Ninth Circuit opined “We have held that attorneys’ fees awarded under fee-shifting statutes or contracts are part of the amount in controversy, and that the amount in controversy includes all relief to which the plaintiff is entitled if the action succeeds.” “We may not depart from this reasoning to hold that one category of relief—future attorneys’ fees—are excluded from the amount in controversy as a matter of law.”

When an employment dispute is settled, the employer often makes the settlement contingent on the employee agreeing never to seek employment with the company again (and if currently employed by the company, to immediately resign). In one case, Golden v. California Emergency Physicians Medical Group, there was some disagreement among the federal courts as to the reasonableness of a provision regarding a former employee’s future employment prospects.

Over the past few years, the Department of Labor (DOL) has attempted to enact updates to the overtime exemptions under the federal Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) including most notably, the controversial salary and job duties requirements applicable to the executive, administrative, and professional exemptions from the FLSA’s overtime requirements. However, these efforts have been delayed by court intervention and presumably by the change in presidential administrations in 2017.

Common sense prevailed in a recent Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals decision interpreting California law on employer obligations to provide meal periods. In Rodriguez v. Taco Bell the district court dismissed potential class-wide claims by Taco Bell employees who claimed that Taco Bell’s discounted meal policy for employees violated the applicable California Wage Order. The policy provided that employees could receive food from the restaurant at a discount, but had to eat such food on the premises.

This article—originally published in Automotive News—looks at the California New Motor Vehicle Board's ruling against GM's use of a benchmark called the retail sales index as grounds to terminate the franchise agreement of Folsom Chevrolet. Scali Rasmussen Partner Halbert “Bert” Rasmussen and Senior Associate Jade Jurdi led the legal team’s victory.

Law firm Scali Rasmussen definitively established that General Motors not only should not have terminated Folsom Chevrolet’s franchise but that it violated California law in doing so. The New Motor Vehicle Board’s decision was effective August 13, 2018.