New Legislation and Regulations

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The long-awaited decision by the US Supreme Court in Viking River Cruises, Inc. v. Moriana was issued on June 15, 2022, and brings some good news for California employers. The issue before the court was whether the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA) preempts a rule of California law that invalidates contractual waivers (e.g. arbitration agreements) of the right to assert representative claims under California’s Private Attorneys General Act (PAGA).
Continue Reading CA Employers: Good News from the US Supreme Court PAGA Actions May Be Subject to Arbitration After All

We previously advised employers that the California Supreme Court agreed to review the Court of Appeal decision Gustavo Naranjo v Spectrum Security Services, Inc. (“Naranjo”), decided by the Second Appellate District in 2019.  On May 23, 2022, the California Supreme Court issued its decision, which has significant and immediate impacts on California employers.  The key takeaways are:
Continue Reading Breaking News – Premium Pay Constitutes Wages!

For the third time, CalOSHA has revised its Emergency Temporary Standards (“ETS”) governing workplace safety due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The revised ETS are due to take effect on May 6, 2022 once they have been reviewed by the Office of Administrative Law and filed with the California Secretary of State.
Continue Reading CalOSHA’s [Revised] ETS are Here to Stay! …at Least Until the End of 2022

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (“DHS”) adopted a temporary policy in response to the difficulties many individuals experienced with renewing documents.  As part of that temporary policy, employers were permitted to consider expired List B identity documents when completing the Form I-9 (“Employment Eligibility Verification”) which is required for employment in the United States.
Continue Reading Department Of Homeland Security Ends the COVID-19 Temporary Policy For Expired List B Identity Documents

Our Blog has been monitoring the ETS that OSHA issued in November 2021 that mandated employers of 100 or more employees to require their employees to obtain COVID-19 vaccinations or undergo regular COVID-19 testing instead.  We have kept you informed as this ETS made its way through the courts.  First, implementation of the ETS was stayed by the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals (see blog on 11/18/2021), then the stay was lifted by the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals (see blog on 12/20/2021), and finally, argument was held before the U.S. Supreme Court, which ordered that the stay be put back in place after a majority of the Court found that OSHA had exceeded its authority in issuing the ETS (see blog on 12/23/2021 and blog on 1/13/2022). (Please note the Court let stand the Biden Administration’s vaccine mandate for certain healthcare workers.)
Continue Reading Federal OSHA Withdraws COVID-19 Vaccination and Testing Emergency Temporary Standard