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California

Employment Lawyer Network:
California

Joseph L. Beachboard (Editor)

California Employment Law

Joe.Beachboard@OgletreeDeakins.com
(213) 239-9800

Click for Full Bio

Joseph L. Beachboard is a nationally recognized expert on employment law issues who speaks regularly at SHRM and other HR events. He also is a regular contributor to several national and California publications. In 2000, Mr. Beachboard sold The Labor Letters, Inc., a publisher of monthly employment law journals that he founded to advise human resource professionals. He is a founding member and executive director of the Management Employment Law Roundtable, a national, invitation only, organization of management labor and employment lawyers.

No lunch, no break? You owe for 2 more hours

07/19/2011
The Court of Appeal of California has finally clarified how much em­­ployers owe employees who don’t get their required meal and other breaks. The penalty is two hours of pay per day if workers missed both types of breaks.

Classifying employees? Examine specific tasks

07/19/2011

Courts are becoming more reluctant to authorize massive class-action lawsuits. Example: A federal court has ruled that assistant restaurant managers who believe they were misclassified must bring individual lawsuits. They can’t proceed as a class. The practical impact: Most likely, lower damages.

What web resources can we use to make sure we are in compliance with I-9 rules?

06/16/2011
Q. Our company needs guidance on keeping up with our obligations with regard to employment eligibility. What resources are available?

Can we require ‘English-only’ at work? Foreign-language chatter is affecting morale

06/16/2011
Q. Some of our employees speak to each other in their native language. We are worried that some workers will feel excluded. To boost employee morale, we would like to institute a policy prohibiting our workers from speaking any language other than English during the workday. Is such a policy legal?

Supreme Court upholds Arizona immigration law, backs E-Verify

06/16/2011
The U.S. Supreme Court has concluded that federal immigration law does not pre-empt or invalidate an Arizona law that subjects Arizona employers to sanctions for knowingly or intentionally employing unauthorized workers and requiring them to use the federal government’s E-Verify online employment eligibility verification system.

Sex harassment, retaliation cost gourmet company $535K

06/16/2011
Monterey Gourmet Foods, a Salinas specialty foods maker, will pay $535,000 to settle an EEOC lawsuit alleging a supervisor sexually har­assed workers, who were fired after they complained.

Cal/OSHA puts heat on contractor after flash fire injures welder

06/16/2011
The California Division of Occu­pa­tional Safety and Health has fined a public works contractor more than $235,000—and threatened to put it out of business and criminally prosecute executives—after a welder suffered severe burns in a workplace flash fire.

LAPD pays huge judgment for sexual orientation retaliation

06/16/2011
A state court jury has awarded more than $1 million to a Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) sergeant who sued the department for retali­a­tion after he complained about shoddy treatment because he is gay.

Employee cites mental distress? Ask for mental exam

06/16/2011
Employees who sue but can’t show they suffered any monetary damages sometimes claim mental distress instead. Fortunately, courts don’t just take their word it, especially if the employee claims she had to undergo psychiatric treatment.

Know the other side’s Achilles’ heel! Plaintiffs must act fast to win court injunctions

06/16/2011

Once a lawsuit has been filed, courts sometimes issue immediate orders—called injunctions—to prevent irre­parable harm. But to get an injunction, the party seeking the order has to show what harm could occur—and convince the court it will probably win the case on its merits. That’s unlikely if the litigant waits too long to ask for relief.