Blog

Aug. 23, 2018

August 23, 2018 There has been an increasing trend by employers to turn to social media sites to find information regarding job applicants. A recent CareerBuilder article found the following: 70 percent of employers use social media…

July 26, 2018

All minimum-wage employees working in Los Angeles County should check their paychecks to ensure they're getting paid properly. Effective July 1, 2018, the minimum wage in Los Angeles County will increase from $10.50 to $12.00 per hour for…

May 4, 2018

In a unanimous ruling on April 30, 2018, the California Supreme Court made it even more difficult for employers to classify their workers as independent contractors. The decision in Dynamex Operations West, Inc. v. Superior Court of Los Angeles Count…

April 17, 2018

Healthy indoor air is recognized as a basic right in the state of California. The quality of the air you breath in your own residence has a significant impact on your health and well-being. The presence of mold in your rental unit can …

April 10, 2018

Under California law, every tip left behind for an employee is declared to be the sole property of the employee to whom it was paid, given, or left for. (Labor Code section 351). In layman's terms, the tip belongs to the employee, not the employer…

March 6, 2018

A Los Angeles jury awarded Dr. Lauren Pinter-Brown, a former UCLA oncologist, $13 million in a gender discrimination case on February 15, 2018 after it found that her complaints about disparate treatment due to her gender were valid…

Feb. 27, 2018

While California's Fair Employment and Housing Act protects employees against discrimination in the workplace based on sexual orientation, among other characteristics, the issue was not as clear in the federal forum until recently. A federal appeals…

Feb. 6, 2018

The California Court of Appeal recently ruled that obesity may qualify as a disability under the Fair Employment and Housing Act ("FEHA"). Cornell v. Berkeley Tennis Club, 2017 WL 6524707 (Cal. Ct. App. 2017). Ketryn Cornell was a severely obese woman who was fired from her job as a manager…

Jan. 5, 2018

Effective January 1, 2018, employers can no longer seek or take into consideration a job applicant's prior compensation and benefits when determining to hire the applicant, and in setting the applicant's compensation and benefits…

Jan. 1, 2018

The California Supreme Court, in a unanimous decision, recently issued a ruling which held that employees must be paid for time spent opening and closing stores. The decision comes from a lawsuit filed by a shift supervisor who worked at Starbucks…