Hunton Employment & Labor Perspectives

The California Second Appellate District has held that retail employees who were required to “call in” two hours before their scheduled shift to find out if they actually needed to report to work were entitled to reporting time pay. The Court held that California retail employees do not need to physically appear at the workplace in order to “report for work,” and be entitled to reporting time pay, under the Industrial Welfare Commission (“IWC”) Wage Order 7.  Given the robust dissent and sweeping change this decision could bring about, this is a case to watch as it may find its way to the California Supreme Court.

Hunton Andrews Kurth LLP is pleased to announce that Los Angeles partner Julia Trankiem has been named one of Los Angeles Business Journal’s Most Influential Minority Attorneys.

What are newly elected Governor Gavin Newsom’s views on #MeToo legislation, and how do they compare to those of his predecessor, Jerry Brown?  We may soon have answers to these questions thanks to a pair of bills introduced by Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez (D-San Diego), which reintroduce harassment-related proposals vetoed by Governor Brown.

As detailed in our previous article on this issue, in Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. v. Superior Court of California, San Francisco Cty., 137 S. Ct. 1773 (June 17, 2017), the U.S. Supreme Court established limitations on personal jurisdiction over non-resident defendants in “mass actions,” effectively supporting the view that plaintiffs cannot simply “forum shop” in large class and collective actions and instead must sue where the corporate defendant has significant contacts for purposes of general jurisdiction or limit the class definition to residents of the state where the lawsuit is filed.  Notably, the Supreme Court’s decision was limited to personal jurisdiction issues in state courts, which has led to a split on the question of whether, and to what extent, the Supreme Court’s analysis applies to class and collective actions pending in federal court.

The presence of alcohol in offices has ebbed and flowed over time and largely depended on the type of business, from drink carts in advertising agencies à la Mad Men to keg refrigerators at startups. The once popular office perk may or may not be waning, but the number of companies addressing the issue and the attention those decisions are generating is certainly increasing. Companies across the country are evaluating their alcohol policies, or lack thereof, particularly in light of #MeToo developments and are considering the following:

As we move closer to implementation of the California Consumer Privacy Act of 2018 (“CCPA”), companies should consider how the new law could affect their operations in multiple ways – including, for example, data collected through their employee benefit plans.

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The United States Supreme Court has agreed to resolve a growing split of authority among lower federal circuit courts regarding the requirement under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (“Title VII”) that individuals must file a charge of discrimination with the EEOC before bringing Title VII claims against their employer. Specifically, the Supreme Court is set to decide the following issue: “Whether Title VII’s administrative-exhaustion requirement is a jurisdictional prerequisite to suit, as three circuits have held, or a waivable claim-processing rule, as eight circuits have held.”

2018 was a big year for insurance coverage cases, especially those involving social engineering phishing, spoofing and other schemes of trickery and deception.  The insurance recovery lawyers at Hunton Andrews Kurth have compiled their list of the top insurance cases of 2018.  A copy of the Review can be found here.

In a rare win for plaintiffs seeking to avoid arbitration, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected a trucking company’s attempt to compel arbitration in a driver’s proposed minimum wage class action.  The Court held that the Federal Arbitration Act’s exemption for interstate transportation workers applies not only to employees, but also to those classified as independent contractors.

The Supreme Court once again has shown its strong preference for enforcing the terms of arbitration agreements as written by the parties.  In Henry Schein Inc. v. Archer & White Sales Inc., Justice Kavanaugh’s first written opinion, the Court held that when an arbitration agreement delegates the threshold question of arbitrability to an arbitrator, the arbitrator, not a court, should decide the question, even if it is clear to a court that the dispute is not covered by the arbitration agreement.  This unanimous opinion adds to a growing body of recent Supreme Court case law making clear that the terms of arbitration agreements, like any other contract, should be enforced as written and without policy considerations or exceptions.