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California Employee Rights Blog

Information on California employee rights brought to you by Peters Law Group, APC.
By James Peters

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Last Entry: November 12, 2009 at 10:54:31

We Fight for Those Who Cannot Fight For Themselves

Posted on November 12, 2009
George Washington once said: Discipline is the soul of an army. It makes small numbers formidable; procures success to the weak, and esteem to all. Letter of Instructions to the Captains of the Virginia Regiments [July 29, 1759]. The advocates of consumer rights, viewing the resources of defense firms and corporate defendants, can relate to the [...

Proposed California Law Restricts Credit Checks for Job Applicants

Posted on September 25, 2009
The Los Angeles Times recently reported on a new bill headed to Governor Schwarzenegger for possible signature (though I believe it is likely to be vetoed) generally prohibiting California employers from requiring applicants to allow them to examine their credit report as part of the application process...

Laid Off? You Still Have Rights! Part 3: Get Your Vacation Pay

Posted on December 02, 2008
In most layoff situations, especially these days, the layoff is legitimate and a necessary evil in cutting costs. However, just because an employee has not been wrongfully terminated in a layoff does not mean they have no California employment law rights...

Laid Off? You Still Have Rights! Part 2: Are You a Statistic?

Posted on November 17, 2008
This is our second post in a series on employees’ rights when they get laid-off from work. In our last post, I pointed out that even though an employee may have been “laid-off” with several other employees, that does not necessarily mean they were not wrongfully terminated in being chosen for layoff...

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Laid Off? You Still Have Rights! Part One: Is Something Fishy?

Posted on November 14, 2008
It seems like every day another company announces mass layoffs in the United States. While we are fielding more calls from potential clients than usual, they have not increased quite as much as overall unemployment. I think part of this might be attributable to a common employment law misconception among employees, which is that they somehow [...

Newsflash: Some Employment Law Defense Attorneys OK

Posted on September 27, 2008
A few days ago I happened upon an article about Littler Mendelson, P.C. They are a large employment law defense firm and have offices in every major metropolitan area of California. I would bet that if I looked at all of the cases our firm has handled over the years, Littler is the firm we [...

Are ?Discretionary? Bonuses Really Discretionary?

Posted on August 07, 2008
Over the past couple of months I have been dealing with a case against a major national bank on behalf of one of its former employees. The case involves his “discretionary” annual bonus, which most employers would say is just that-discretionary...

Employee Rights and Hourly Fees Do Not Mix

Posted on August 03, 2008
This past Friday I spoke with a potential client who was recently terminated by his employer. I concluded that he did not have a case worth pursuing and any claims he did have were likely not worth pursuing if it meant giving up the severance his employer had already offered to him...

The Perils of Trying to Win at ?All Costs?

Posted on June 29, 2008
Some employees (and some employee-rights attorneys) believe that if they are wrongfully terminated and able to get a new job just days later, they will only be able to recover a few thousand dollars and it would not be “worth it” to pursue a claim, especially if they have to pay an attorney to get [...

Family Status Discrimination and Equal Pay Laws

Posted on June 22, 2008
This post is part of our ongoing series dealing with “family status” discrimination. Family status claims implicate several employment laws, depending on the facts of a given case. For example, the federal Equal Pay Act (”EPA”) and also California law mandate “equal pay” between men and women...

Assumption Stereotyping as Family Status Discrimination

Posted on May 17, 2008
This is our second post in our series on “family status” discrimination. The last post dealt with examples of “moral stereotyping” where an employer’s belief on what women should do motivates their discrimination. This post deals with what I call “assumption” stereotyping, which deals with instances where an employer is motivated by their [...

Moral Stereotyping as Family Status Discrimination

Posted on May 03, 2008
This is my second post in our multi-part series on “family status” discrimination, which is becoming more and more common under both federal and state law. There are many ways family status discrimination can happen in the workplace, some of which are very subtle and difficult to prove...

Family Status Discrimination: Introduction (Part 1)

Posted on April 16, 2008
One employment law claim that has been quickly becoming more popular these days is “family status discrimination”. That is, discriminating against someone based on their familial obligations or simply because they have a family in the first place...

CA Legislator: Lying Liar Telling Lies

Posted on March 29, 2008
It is fairly common for sweeping employment law legislation to be introduced in the California legislature and I usually do not pay much attention to these bills because they usually do not become law. One of two things almost always happens: (1) the republicans introduce a pro-employer bill that will never pass the democratically-controlled legislature [...

First Tribune Handbook Violator: Its Creator

Posted on February 06, 2008
Ok, so this topic has been blogged to death by not only me, but the blawgosphere as a whole. However, I just received this update to the story. Sam Zell, the head of Tribune Co., met with his employees/journalists last week at the Orlando Sentinel, one of the newspapers covered by his idiotic/inspiring (depending on [...

Game Show Employee Rights?

Posted on February 06, 2008
Apparently there is a new game show out called “Moment of Truth” that gives contestants a lie detector test before the show and then the host asks them the same questions on the air. If the contestant’s answer on the air is different from the results of the polygraph, they lose (up to [...

The Best Worst Paid Leave Policy Ever

Posted on January 28, 2008
A Reuters story this morning deals with what is both one of the most liberal paid leave policies I have ever seen and also one of the most blatantly discriminatory. Hime & Company, a Tokyo-based marketing firm, offers paid leave to employees who have a bad breakup, termed “heartache leave”...

Study: Discrimination Policies Poorly Communicated

Posted on January 25, 2008
A timely study by the Institute for Corporate Productivity (i4cp) that was released on Tuesday finds that the vast majority of corporations have some sort of formal anti-discrimination policy. However, failure to adequately communicate such policies is a frequent problem, where only 80% of those companies rate anti-discrimination training “either somewhat or very important”...

Employment Discrimination Against Medical Marijuana Users is Legal in California

Posted on January 24, 2008
Well, the California Supreme Court finally released its opinion in Ross v. Ragingwire Telecommunications, Inc., S138130, today and I have to say I am disappointed with the opinion, although I think the dissenting opinion was completely on the mark. The Decision The Court decided that employers can terminate employees in California who use medical marijuana with a [...

Our Gobbledygood vs. Their Gobbledygook

Posted on January 23, 2008
Well, my post about the Los Angeles Times article on their new employee handbook seems to have set off (or at least contributed to) a firestorm throughout the web. Some of the reaction seems off-the-mark, though. Comments: The Good, The Bad and the Ugly The overwhelming majority of mail I received is in agreement with my comments [...

?Mind-Numbing Lawyer Gobbledygook? Overrated?

Posted on January 19, 2008
An article in Thursday’s Los Angeles Times discusses their own parent company, Tribune Co.’s new employee handbook that was introduced by their CEO, Sam Zell, via a recent e-mail to employees. This caught my eye because it is not every day that a company publicly releases or discusses their employee handbook...

Ron Paul on Employee Rights (Part 3): Darn Those Pesky Civil Rights Laws

Posted on January 17, 2008
In this third and final installment in our series on Ron Paul’s comments about employee rights in his book Freedom Under Siege, we examine his views on civil rights legislation in general, which can be found in several sections of his book, but is best summed up with the following quote found on page [...

Ron Paul on Employee Rights (Part 2): Unattractive Women Need Not Apply

Posted on January 16, 2008
This is the second in our series of posts based on Presidential Candidate Ron Paul’s musings on employee rights in his book Freedom Under Siege. This installment’s “Paulism” can be found on page 17 of the book: The idea that the social do-gooder can legislate a system which forces industry to pay men and women [...

Ron Paul on Employee Rights (Part 1): Sexual Harassment-What?s the Big Deal?

Posted on January 15, 2008
I have tried to tune out most of the political primary hysteria because I (1) made up my mind about who I would be supporting in the election long ago and (2) I live in California, so my opinion is not really that important at this stage. Today I happened to stumble across some of Ron [...

Employers Must At Least TRY To Accommodate Disabled Employees

Posted on January 15, 2008
In the United States, employers must actively engage in an “interactive process” with disabled employees to try and find a “reasonable accommodation” for their disability, even if no such accommodation actually exists. What is an “Interactive Process”? What this means is if an employer knows one of their employees is disabled and they suspect that employee might [...

Sometimes the "Decider" is Wrong

Posted on January 12, 2008
Let me first say that I rarely disagree with decisions by California state or federal appellate courts (at least those I am not personally involved in and therefore biased towards). However, I occasionally come across a case where I just think the court got it wrong...

Congress Tries to Legalize ?English Only? Workplace Policies

Posted on November 20, 2007
According to an article in today’s Los Angeles Times, Congressional Republicans are pushing to amend federal anti-discrimination laws to do away with the provision that prohibits employers from requiring employees to only speak English at work. Currently, under Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act such an “English-only” policy is considered national origin discrimination...

NEVER E-mail Your Attorney From Work!

Posted on November 12, 2007
Sometimes employees use their employer’s e-mail address or computer to contact us. This is understandable, especially for long-term employees who spend most of their waking time at work or using a company-issued computer at home. The problem is that using an employer’s computer or e-mail address to communicate with your attorney might mean these communications [...

CA Supreme Court Considers Employees? Medical Marijuana Use

Posted on November 07, 2007
Yesterday the California Supreme Court heard arguments in Ross v. Ragingwire Telecommunications, Inc. In this case, the employee was refused employment because his pre-employment drug test came back positive for marijuana. The employee had been using medical marijuana at the direction of his physician to deal with lower back strain and muscle spasms...

California Supreme Court Decides Lump Sum Expense Reimbursement is OK

Posted on November 06, 2007
Yesterday the California Supreme Court issued its decision in Gattuso v. Harte-Hanks Shoppers, Inc., ruling that employers may reimburse employee expenses in the form of “additional wages” payable in a “lump sum” instead of reimbursing each separate expense for the exact amount incurred...

California Lowers Standards for Computer Software Professional Overtime Exemption

Posted on November 06, 2007
As explained in various posts on this blog, California employees are presumed to deserve overtime pay for any hours worked over 40 in one week or 8 in one day, even if they are paid a salary, unless the employer can prove that an exemption to that rule applies...

Schwarzenegger ?Terminates? Employee Rights (Part 3)-Family Values?

Posted on November 05, 2007
This is our final installment in a series dealing with employee rights laws that California’s legislature passed in 2007, but which Governor Schwarzenegger vetoed last month before they could take effect. SB 836 Senate Bill 836 was heralded nationwide as the first law prohibiting employer discrimination against employees based on their “family status”...

Schwarzenegger ?Terminates? Employee Rights (Part 2)-Difficult Choices

Posted on November 04, 2007
This is the second post in a series on several very important bills the California legislature passed in 2007 to protect employees that the Governor vetoed at the last possible moment last month. SB 537 Despite supporting a strong new law providing protected leave to military spouses whose husbands or wives are on leave from service, the [...

Schwarzenegger ?Terminates? Employee Rights (Part 1)-Why?

Posted on November 03, 2007
As the end of the year approached, Governor Schwarzenegger vetoed several employee protections the California legislature passed in 2007. While he felt it was important to give full protections to military spouses whose husbands or wives were on leave, he deemed other employees to be less deserving of similar rights...

California Passes Spousal Military Leave Law

Posted on November 02, 2007
California has passed a law providing employees whose spouses are on active military duty with protected leave from work to be with their spouses when they are on leave from duty. Governor Schwarzenegger signed Assembly Bill 392 into law last month and it became effective immediately...

We?re back!!

Posted on November 02, 2007
Hello again, everyone. I know that we have been MIA for awhile now, but a lot of changes have been going on at Peters Law Group. My wife and I welcomed our new son into the world, our firm relocated and I have had many time-consuming cases come to a head all at [...

Test Post

Posted on March 07, 2007
Testing

The ?No Bad Apples Rule?

Posted on March 05, 2007
Employers could avoid a LOT of lawsuits if they would just follow the “No Bad Apples Rule”, which has its origins in a book written by Dr. Robert Sutton called “The No Asshole Rule: Building a Civilized Workplace and Surviving One That Isn’t”...

Glass Ceiling is Still an Obstacle for Female Interviewees

Posted on March 04, 2007
Sometimes it is easy to forget that discrimination against women, minorities and (of course) minority women still occurs in this country. This might bring to mind examples where uneducated, unskilled women are denied employment and/or harassed by uneducated men who think of them as sex objects, such as in the movie North Country...

Q&A: Overtime Calculation with Two Different Hourly Rates

Posted on February 19, 2007
Q: My employer pays me at one rate of pay for my regular work, but then pays me minimum wage for travel and attending seminars after-hours. How is my overtime supposed to be calculated? –Bad at Math (CA) A: Calculating overtime for an hourly employee who is paid at two separate hourly rates is [...

Military Leaves from Work Heavily Protected

Posted on February 15, 2007
One of the strongest job protections for employees in the United States is for those who take a leave of absence to serve in the armed forces. I have seen a dramatic increase in these claims in just the past year and I recently filed a federal lawsuit for a client in San Francisco [...

Why Wal-Mart Employees Should Consider NOT Accepting Settlement

Posted on January 26, 2007
Yesterday, it was reported that Wal-Mart had reached a settlement with the Department of Labor to settle unpaid overtime claims by its employees. The odd thing about this settlement is that Wal-Mart turned itself in to the Department of Labor and negotiated a quick settlement with the government and the employees had no say in what [...

Q&A: Restrictions on Bad References by Former Employers

Posted on January 25, 2007
Q: I quit my last job because my boss would not stop asking me out on dates. Now I am having a really tough time finding a new position. Every time I go through an interview they seem to love me, but then it falls through once they start checking my references...

Commissioned Salespeople & Overtime, Part 4: Final Words

Posted on January 21, 2007
Although this series on commissioned salespeople and overtime might not be the most exciting employment law topic, for those with large unpaid claims, it probably is the most exciting. I leave this topic with the following points. Minimum Wage Test The final test that must be met before commissioned salespeople can be considered “exempt” from overtime [...

Commissioned Salespeople & Overtime, Part 3: Qualified Employer?

Posted on January 21, 2007
Even if you meet the criteria to be classified as “exempt” from overtime pay as a commissioned salesperson, the business your employer is engaged in can also automatically qualify you for overtime, regardless of how you are paid. Commissioned salespeople can only be “exempt” if their employer is a “retail or service establishment”...

Commissioned Salespeople & Overtime, Part 2: Are You ?Commissioned??

Posted on January 18, 2007
In order for an employee to qualify as “exempt” from overtime pay as a commissioned salesperson, the main test that must be met is the employee MUST make more than 50% of their wages in the form of “commissions”. This test is not as straightforward as it might sound at first...

Commissioned Salespeople & Overtime, Part 1: ?How much??

Posted on January 18, 2007
This is the first in a series of posts dealing specifically with the issue of commissioned salespeople and unpaid overtime. This is an area most employees, many employers, and even a large percentage of California attorneys do not understand correctly...

Employers? Calculation of Overtime Hours Often Incorrect

Posted on January 17, 2007
Employers and employees are often confused about how many hours an employee must work before overtime must be paid. California law is more complicated than most states on this point, but it is also much more generous to employees than most. Employers must pay all non-exempt employees overtime at the rate of time-and-one-half for all [...

Overtime Rate MUST Include Bonuses and Commissions in Calculation

Posted on January 17, 2007
Employers, either through ignorance or intentionally, often make big mistakes in calculating overtime rates of pay for their employees and these often turn into big claims by the employees for unpaid wages later on. Overtime Rate NOT Just 1...