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California

Employment Lawyer Network:
California

Joseph L. Beachboard (Editor)

California Employment Law

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

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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.

Failure to grant more leave costs Fresno company $1.75M

02/06/2019
Family HealthCare Network in Fresno will pay $1.75 million to settle charges that its inflexible leave policies discriminated against disabled and pregnant employees.

OK to round hours if it favors employees

02/06/2019
Employers often round workers’ time up or down instead of calculating the exact number of minutes worked. That’s fine as long as, on average, the system works to employees’ benefit.

Defend against misclassification claim by describing exactly how employee did her job

02/06/2019
When it comes to defending against charges that you misclassified an employee, it’s crucial to have details about the actual work the employee performs. Specifics matter.

Sexual harassment doesn’t always have to focus on sexual activity

02/06/2019
An intense focus on sexual activity or sex characteristics isn’t always necessary to prove sexual harassment. As long as the victim can link the behavior she’s calling harassment to her sex in some way, she’s got a case.

You don’t have to send out a search party to notify absent employees of leave policies

02/06/2019
Em­­ployers that have tried to tell an em­­­ployee what’s missing in a leave request don’t have an independent obli­­gation to hunt down the employee to give her the information if she hasn’t provided contact information.

Consider outsourcing background checks

02/06/2019
Have the vendor limit the information it passes along to brief summaries instead of exhaustive details about applicants’ backgrounds.

Beverly Hills faces onslaught of lawsuits against top cop

02/06/2019
Almost 10% of the Beverly Hills Police Department’s officers have sued the chief of police, Sandra Spagnoli, alleging sexual misconduct and bigotry.

Note all details that led up to discipline

02/01/2019
Having good documentation of your reasoning will often persuade a judge or jury that discrimination wasn’t the real reason for differing discipline, and that you legitimately used discretion to arrive at the appropriate punishment.

Count errors to make a solid case for discipline

01/16/2019
If it’s possible, quantify any mistakes employees make. For example, if you can count specific errors, track the number.

When it comes to discipline, details matter

01/16/2019
Smart employers are ready to counter charges of discrimination with details about the underlying reasons for discipline.