Orange County Employment Attorney: Great news! The OC Employment Attorney Blog’s own Tamara Freeze recently won a Motion to Compel discovery responses which also resulted in the trial court issuing monetary sanctions of $2,450 against defendant Bingham McCutchen LLP for its abuse of the discovery process (see the court’s order here). Plaintiff Hartwell Harris (who has maintained…
Orange County Employment Attorney: Olivia Wilde, Kerry Washington and now Carrie Mathison? It sure feels like everyone’s getting pregnant these days, which is why it’s no surprise that one of most common questions I get asked is: “How much time can I take off work for pregnancy leave?” THE QUICK ANSWER Like all legal questions,…
Orange County Employment Lawyer: Thanks to the Fair Employment and Housing Commission and the vital contribution it received from the California Employment Lawyers Association, California has implemented landmark regulations protecting employment rights of pregnant workers. These regulations have been updated to be even more far-reaching, with broad definitions of disability and reasonable accommodation rights. …
Orange County Employment Attorney: Eight months after a California Court of Appeal unanimously laid the smack down on Bingham McCutchen, ruling that their mandatory employee arbitration agreement was unenforceable, Bingham is going for broke and appealing to the U.S. Supreme Court. The appeal comes almost five months after the California Supreme Court denied Bingham’s request…
Orange County Employment Attorney: Reports have been popping up this week detailing how Yahoo CEO, Marissa Mayer, has implemented a system where managers are forced to rank Yahoo employees on a bell curve and then fire those at the low end. This seems to be the second major HR disaster coming from Mayer’s reign after…
Orange County Employment Attorney: California’s Paid Family Leave Law (PFL) was the first in the country to provide partial wage replacement to employees who had to take time off work to care for seriously ill family members or to bond with newborns or adopted children. Paid Family Leave provides up to six weeks of…
Orange County Employment Attorney: Caltrans received a very special Halloween treat yesterday when a Los Angeles jury awarded employee Tony Brake, a 50-year old bridge engineer and first-line supervisor, over $570,000 in economic and emotional distress damages after senior Caltrans employees subjected him to whistleblower retaliation after he reported (and refused to participate in) discrimination against…
Orange County Employment Attorney: “Don’t come back until you’re 100%” . . . “Get your doctor to lift these restrictions, then we’ll talk” . . . “The maximum amount of leave you can take is six months – that’s just our policy.” These are just some of the many tactics employers use to avoid dealing…
Didn’t you get that memo? One of the most important new employment cases coming down from the California Supreme Court this year has definitely been Harris v. City of Santa Monica. In a nutshell, the Court’s holding in Harris gives California Employers even more incentive to document and exaggerate the mistakes and shortcomings of their employees.…
Orange County Religious Dress Discrimination Attorney: A recent amendment to the California Fair Employment and Housing Act (FEHA), AB 1964, clarifies that discrimination based on religion includes “religious dress practice” as well as “religious grooming practice.” The revised Government Code section 12926(p) states that “religious dress practice” must be construed broadly to include “the wearing or…