To better serve its Central and Northern California clients on staying ahead of the rapidly changing automotive regulatory landscape, The Scali Law Firm today announced that it has expanded to Sacramento by adding Monica J. Baumann who, as CNCDA’s Director of Regulatory and Legislative Affairs, has overseen cutting edge, industry-affecting litigation, assisted in the preparation and presentation of new legislation affecting auto dealers in California, overseen the revision of a number of the CNCDA’s dealer manuals, spearheaded the first ever CNCDA Employment Law Manual, and presented numerous educational compliance seminars to auto dealers.

The Part 1 of the article Selling Your Dealership: Organizational and Compliance Considerations, by Scali Law Firm attorneys Christian J. Scali, John P. Swenson and Gus N. Paras, was published in Automotive Buy Sell Report.

Our recent article, Information Security best practices in an age of spear-phishing, malware and ransomware, was just featured in the National Association of Dealer Counsel's September 2016 issue of Defender.

Three months ago, we reported that the California Court of Appeal stretched precedent to expand the FEHA’s protections for persons merely associated with someone with a disability (the first case of its kind to do so). Specifically, the Court found that an employee who had informed his employer of his need to administer dialysis to his sick son, and whose request to work the early shift had been accommodated for years, could maintain a claim for failure to reasonably accommodate a disability when this accommodation was taken away (apparently for no good business reason). The reasoning was that FEHA’s reasonable accommodation provision extended to persons with disabilities who were associated with employees or applicants and this association was itself the employee or applicant’s “disability.” But the Plaintiff in this case had previously abandoned his claim for failure to reasonably accommodate. So the defendant asked the court of appeal for a rehearing of the issue in light of that critical fact. The court of appeal agreed to rehear the case.

Last week, the DOT released its new guidelines on the development of highly autonomous vehicles. Scali Law Firm managing partner, Christian J. Scali, comments on these guidelines in the Daily Journal's article titled New driverless car standards create a patchy road map, by staff reporter, Matthew Blake.

As print, radio, and television media become a smaller part of consumers’ lives, dealerships are relying more on internet advertising to reach new clients. Despite this increased use of internet advertising, many dealership websites are not compliant with applicable laws. For example, although many California dealerships provide legally-mandated disclosures after a monthly lease payment in their print ads, they often fail to provide these disclosures online or bury them in a tiny disclaimer at the bottom of a web page. But the majority of advertising laws apply consistently in all forms of media. This article briefly addresses three major deficiencies that we often see on dealership websites.

That was the issue on appeal in Nichols v Century West, LLC et al., 2016 Cal.App.LEXIS 689, after judgment was entered for the dealership. The court of appeal held that post-dated downpayment checks provided to the dealer on the date of sale—as opposed to payments scheduled to be made at a later date—are not “deferred” downpayments.

Selling a dealership involves many moving parts. A proactive dealer can make itself more marketable and streamline the buy/sell process by preparing before going to market. While preparing to go to market includes getting your financial, employment, inventory, franchise and real estate house in order as well, this article highlights some other important considerations to add to your checklist before going to market.

In a 4-3 split decision, Sandquist v. Lebo Automotive, Inc., the California Supreme Court recently held that who decides if a valid arbitration agreement allows class arbitration—an arbitrator or judge—depends on the agreement. This decision is in stark contrast to all recent federal appellate decisions, which require a court to decide whether an agreement allows class arbitration, unless the parties unmistakably agreed otherwise. Sandquist appears to flip that on its head, meaning California arbitration agreements that do not expressly waive class arbitrations may be headed to an arbitrator near you to interpret whether class claims will be permitted in arbitration.

State and federal law requires auto dealers to protect their customers’ non-public private information and dealers have their own sensitive and confidential information to protect. Much of this information is vulnerable to data security threats. Dealers should, by now, be very familiar with these risks and ways to combat them, but newer risks have surfaced in the last few years that require updates to safeguards policies and other actions and vigilance to effectively combat.

One of the most promising applications of AV technology in trucking is the use of adaptive cruise control and vehicle-to-vehicle communication systems to allow truck “platooning.” Platooning lets two or more trucks electronically couple so that acceleration and braking by the lead truck can be instantaneously relayed to, and replicated by, following trucks. The result is closer following distances between trucks, which allows for significant increases in fuel efficiency and safety.

Dealerships usually use uniforms for at least certain job positions to promote a professional image. There are certain rules applicable to uniform requirements that employers should keep in mind.

We regularly receive inquiries from dealership clients as to whether they can deduct from an employee’s pay the expense caused by the employee’s loss or damage to Company equipment. This question often comes up in relation to electronic devices issued to employees by the dealership, (such as phones and other mobile devices), as well as vehicles and other equipment that employees use to perform their jobs. If the employer believes that the employee was careless or negligent in causing the damage or loss of the equipment, it may be tempting for the employer to simply deduct the expense or loss from the employee’s paycheck. But doing so is risky!!

To establish a case for retaliation under Labor Code Section 1102.5, employees must show that they engaged in protected activity, the employer subjected them to adverse employment action(s), and that there is a causal link between the protected activity and the adverse action. So what is an adverse employment action?

Section 1102.5 of the California Labor Code affords “whistleblowers” (those who report unlawful activity) protections from retaliation. Employers need to handle such reports with care, and train their managers to respond appropriately as well.

The article Dealers have to provide suitable seating to their employees under specified circumstances: Do you know what they are?—by The Scali Law Firm attorneys Christian Scali, Jennifer Woo Burns and Jasmin B. Bhandari—was published in the latest newsletter from the Greater Los Angeles New Car Dealers Association.