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Beth V. West

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Beth is a Shareholder and Chair of the Firm’s Labor and Employment Group. She is admitted to practice law in California and Washington. She has years of experience assisting employers in all aspects of their employment relationship with their employees. Her practice focuses on counseling and training employers, HR professionals, and managers.

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The California Legislature has been pretty busy this year introducing various bills that will affect certain California employers.  Below is a brief summary of two bills recently signed by the Governor – one that amends the new mandatory sick leave law, and one that ensures that professional cheerleaders are treated as employees for purposes of employment entitlements and protections.

Assembly Bill 304 – Amending the New Healthy Workplaces-Healthy Families Act (aka Mandatory Paid Sick Leave Law).Beth-West-15_web

The bill which takes effect immediately, amends the Healthy Workplaces, Healthy Families Act of 2014 that went into effect on July 1, 2015.  Among other things, this bill clarifies that an employee must work for the same employer within California for 30 or more days per year in order to qualify for accrued sick leave.  It also authorizes an employer to provide for employee sick leave accrual on a basis other than one hour for each 30 hours worked, provided that the accrual is on a regular basis and the employee will have 24 hours of accrued sick leave available by the 120th calendar day of employment.   Additionally, the bill clarifies that an employer may limit an employee’s use of paid sick days to 24 hours or 3 days as follows: in each year of employment; in a calendar year; or in a specified a 12-month period.  The bill also provides that an employer has no obligation to inquire into or record the purposes for which an employee uses sick leave or paid time off.Continue Reading The Governor Agrees – Professional Cheerleaders are “Employees” and Employees are Entitled to Paid Sick Leave Pursuant to the Amended Healthy Workplaces-Healthy Families Act

In a 5-4 decision authored by Justice Kennedy and joined by Justices Ginsburg, Breyer, Sotomayor, and Kagan, the United State Supreme Court issued a landmark decision in Obergefell at al. v. Hodges, Director, Ohio Department of Health, et al. on June 26, 2015.

The essence of the holding is that:

  1. The right to marry is a fundamental right inherent in the liberty of the person, and under the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution, couples of the same-sex may not be deprived of that right and that liberty;
  2. The state laws challenged by the petitioners in the consolidated cases before the Court are invalid to the extent they exclude same-sex couples from civil marriage on the same terms and conditions as opposite-sex couples.Beth-West-15_web

Continue Reading The U.S. Supreme Court Has Spoken – The 14th Amendment Requires States to Recognize Same Sex Marriage

At a time when the world is reading about Bruce Jenner’s gender transition to Caitlyn Jenner, the federal Occupational Safety and Health Association (OSHA) has issued its best practices guidelines regarding providing restroom access for transgender employees.Beth-West-15_web

In summary, here is what OSHA says:

The employee should determine the most appropriate and safest option for…

Abercrombie & Fitch (AF) refused to hire Samantha Elauf, a practicing Muslim, on the basis that the headscarf she wore during her interview conflicted with AF’s “Look Policy” which prohibits employees from wearing “caps” (a term that the Policy did not define). The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) filed suit on Elauf’s behalf, alleging a violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which, inter alia, prohibits a prospective employer from refusing to hire an applicant because of the applicant’s religious prac­tice when the practice could be accommodated without undue hard­ship. Elauf wore the headscarf as part of her religious practice as a Muslim but she did not communicate this to the manager who interviewed her nor did she ask for an accommodation in order to wear the headscarf.Beth-West-15_web
Continue Reading Supreme Court Issues its Decision in EEOC v. Abercrombie & Fitch Stores Answering the Question: When Does an Employer Have to Accommodate an Applicant’s Religious Practices?

Beth-West-15_webThe United State Supreme Court issued its much anticipated decision in the case of Young v. UPS on March 24, 2015.  As of now, Young’s pregnancy discrimination claim remains alive and well.

Below is a summary of the court’s ruling:

Factual and Procedural Background.

Young was a part-time driver for UPS. When she became pregnant, her doctor advised her that she should not lift more than 20 pounds. UPS, however, re­quired drivers like Young to be able to lift up to 70 pounds. UPS told Young that she could not work while under a lifting restriction. Young subsequently filed a lawsuit under the federal Pregnancy Discrimination Act (the “Act”), claiming that UPS act­ed unlawfully in refusing to accommodate her pregnancy-related lift­ing restriction. She brought only a disparate-treatment (intentional) claim of dis­crimination, which a plaintiff can prove either by direct evidence that a workplace policy, practice, or decision relies expressly on a protect­ed characteristic, or by using the burden-shifting framework set forth in the case of McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. Green. Under the McDonnell Douglas framework, the plaintiff has “the initial burden” of “establishing a prima facie case” of discrimination.  If she carries her burden, the employer must have an opportunity “to articulate some legitimate, non-discriminatory reason[s] for” the difference in treatment.  If the employer articulates such reasons, the burden shifts back to the plaintiff who has “an opportunity to prove by a preponderance of the evidence that the reasons . . . were a pretext for discrimination.” (cites omitted)

UPS filed a summary judgment motion in the District Court. In reply, Young presented several favorable facts that she believed she could prove. In particular, she pointed to UPS policies that accommodated work­ers who had lifting restrictions similar to hers because they were either injured on the job or had disabilities covered by the Amer­icans with Disabilities Act   (ADA).  UPS policies also accommodated employees who couldn’t drive at all because they had lost Department of Transportation (DOT) certifications. Young argued that these policies showed that UPS discriminated against its pregnant employees because it had a light-duty-for-injury policy for numerous “other persons,” but not for pregnant workers. UPS responded that, since Young did not fall within the on-the-job injury, ADA, or DOT categories, it had not discriminated against Young on the basis of pregnancy, but had treated her just as it treated all “other relevant persons.”
Continue Reading U.S. Supreme Court Issues Decision in Young v. UPS