Practical HR Tips, News & Advice. Updated Daily.
The long-running class action lawsuit over alleged misclassification of Farmers Insurance Exchange adjusters has taken another twist: A California court of appeal has ruled that the employees can sue the San Francisco law firm that represented them against Farmers for malpractice.
A California law curtailing some employers’ rights to oppose their employees’ unionizing efforts is superseded by the National Labor Relations Act, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeal has held. The ruling could bring welcome relief to employers facing union organization efforts.
Suppose a supervisor retaliates against an employee who complained about sexual harassment by initiating a disciplinary investigation against the employee. The employee is ultimately terminated for disciplinary reasons and sues you for retaliation. Can you claim you’re not liable because the person who made the termination decision didn’t know about the harassment complaints? Not according […]
Joan Grinzi, a case manager for San Diego Hospice Corp., was fired after 13 years on the job as an at-will employee. Hospice, which is a private company, allegedly initially told Grinzi that she was being terminated because she belonged to the Women’s Garden Circle, an investment group that Hospice considered to be an illegal […]
A new California appeal court ruling shows how an at-will agreement with a new hire won’t shield you from claims that you intentionally misrepresented the employment terms to induce the person to come work for you. We’ll explain what happened.
A new California appeal court decision underscores how critical it is to make sure your workers’ comp insurance policy stays in force and that you have proof of insurance. Here’s what happened.
The American workforce is getting older, and age-bias complaints are prevalent. In 2003, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission received 19,124 age-discrimination claims and recovered $48.9 million in damages for age-bias victims. And big cases regularly hit the headlines. In July 2004, for example, Google, the California-based Internet search engine company, was sued for age bias […]
New Paid Family Leave Regulations Released As most California employers know, the new Paid Family Leave (PFL) law kicked into action this summer, providing partial wage-replacement benefits for workers who take time off to care for a seriously ill family member or bond with a new child. At the same time, the state Employment Development […]
The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that a constructive discharge—in which the work environment becomes so intolerable that an employee is forced to quit—can amount to an adverse employment action in a hostile environment sexual harassment case. And, depending on the circumstances, you could be held automatically liable in this situation if the harasser is […]
In 1975, the U.S. Supreme Court in the case of National Labor Relations Review Board (NLRB) v. Weingarten gave workers the right to bring a union representative to an investigatory interview conducted by the employer. Following that decision, the NLRB flip-flopped on whether nonunion workers also had these so-called “Weingarten rights”—specifically, whether they could have […]