After a decade of ups and downs on the question of federal preemption, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has upheld the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s (“FMSCA”) decision to preempt California’s meal and rest break rules.  The long-awaited decision in IBT v. FMCSA upholds the FMSCA’s December 2018 determination that drivers, who are involved in interstate commerce and subject to federal hours-of-service regulations, are exempt from California’s stringent meal and rest break rules because they are “incompatible” with federal regulations.  “The FMCSA reached this conclusion because California required more breaks, more often and with less flexibility as to timing,” the Court’s three-judge panel said in its January 15 opinion.
Continue Reading The Ninth Circuit Puts the Brakes on Truckers’ California Meal and Rest Break Claims

On January 1, 2021, various new and amended employment laws will go into effect in California. Below is a summary of some of these laws that employers should make themselves aware of heading into the new year.  All laws discussed in this post go into effect on January 1, 2021, unless otherwise noted.
Continue Reading New Employment Laws to Look Out for in 2021

As we have previously reported, California law utilizes the “ABC” test to determine if workers are employees or independent contractors for purposes of the Labor Code, the Unemployment Insurance Code, and the wage orders of the Industrial Welfare Commission.
Continue Reading Expanding Independent Contractors in California: New Law Awaits Governor’s Signature

As class actions brought under Illinois’ Biometric Information Privacy Act (“BIPA”) proceed through litigation, defendants have made a variety of arguments attempting to push courts to define the limits of the somewhat vague statute. The Illinois Supreme Court’s 2019 decision in Rosenbach v. Six Flags Entertainment Corp. was the first opinion to provide interpretive guidance of BIPA, and specifically, what type of injury is required for a person to have standing to bring a private right of action under the statute. (We explain BIPA and the Rosenbach opinion here.)
Continue Reading Is BIPA Preempted? – Illinois Appellate Court Considers Workers’ Compensation Exclusivity Question

On September 18 2019, Governor Gavin Newsom signed into law AB-5, which codified the California Supreme Court’s Dynamex v. Superior Court decision.  In Dynamex, the California Supreme Court adopted the so-called “ABC” test to determine coverage under the Industrial Welfare Commission (“IWC”) Wage Orders.  AB-5 expands the application of the ABC test to the entire California Labor Code and will take effect on January 1, 2020.
Continue Reading It’s Official: Newsom Expands The Definition of “Employee” Under California Law

On September 5, 2019, the Washington Supreme Court issued a huge win for all non-agricultural employers who pay commission or piece-rate pay to their employees in Washington state. In a 6-3 decision, the Washington Supreme Court held in Sampson v. Knight Transportation (No. 96264-2) that a non-agricultural piece-rate employer complies with the Washington Minimum Wage Act when an employee’s total earnings in given workweek divided by the employee’s total hours worked in the same workweek exceeds the applicable minimum wage rate. While this conclusion may seem obvious, the Washington Supreme Court in 2018 rejected the same workweek averaging method for agricultural workers. Carranza v. Dovex Fruit Co., 190 Wn. 2d 612 (2018) held that the Washington Minimum Wage Act (“MWA”) requires agricultural workers earning piece-rate pay to be separately compensated on an hourly basis for all “activities outside of piece-rate [] work.” The question in Sampson was whether the holding in Carranza should be extended to non-agricultural piece-rate employers. Relying on a regulation promulgated over 40 years ago by the Washington Department of Labor & Industries (“DLI”), the Washington Supreme Court held that Carranza’s separate compensation rule is confined to the narrow context of agricultural employment.
Continue Reading Peace for Piece-Rate Employers in Washington

Following the launch of the so-called “MeToo” movement, the California Legislature (controlled by a Democratic supermajority) has aggressively churned out new bills that further strengthen the ability for workers to sue their employers and increase the already-significant regulatory burden on these companies. This fall, the California Legislature is geared to send three significant bills to Governor Gavin Newsom that all California employers should carefully follow.
Continue Reading Three Major Workplace Bills to Land on Gov. Gavin Newsom’s Desk

Signaling another positive development for interstate motor carriers operating in California, the United States District Court for the Central District of California (the “Central District”) recently dismissed a truck driver’s claims that motor carrier U.S. Xpress failed to provide a class of drivers with legally required meal and rest periods compliant with California law. See, Ayala v. U.S. Express Enters., Inc. et al. Case No. 5:16-cv-00137-GW-(KKx) (Order Granting Partial Summary Judgment). The Court, in granting U.S. Xpress’s motion for partial summary judgment, stated that it did not possess the authority to review the merits of the case since the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (“FMCSA”) determined, in December 2018, that Federal law preempts California state law. The Central District applied the FMCSA’s order retroactively to the Ayala case, filed in 2016, stating that it was bound by the FMCSA order and would apply the order in similar cases unless and until the order was invalidated by the Ninth Circuit.
Continue Reading California’s Meal and Rest Break Rules for Commercial Motor Vehicle Drivers Remain Preempted by Federal Law . . . For Now

Last year, the California Supreme Court decided Dynamex Operations West, Inc. v. Superior Court of Los Angeles, a landmark decision that dramatically increased the risk of misclassifying individuals as independent contractors. As previously reported, although Dynamex replaced the longstanding Borello standard with the “ABC” test, it also left two critical questions unaddressed. First, Dynamex did not address whether the ABC test applies retroactively. Second, Dynamex did not decide whether its scope was limited to coverage under the Industrial Wage Commission’s (“IWC”) Wage Orders or if its holding generally applied to the Labor Code as a whole. In the last five days, both questions have been answered.

On May 2, 2019, the Ninth Circuit found that Dynamex applies retroactively under California law in Vazquez v. Jan-Pro Franchising International, Inc., the most notable decision to date regarding Dynamex’s retroactivity. Shortly thereafter, on May 3, 2019, the Division of Labor Standards Enforcement (“DLSE”), California’s wage and hour enforcement agency, issued a letter opining the ABC test applies to both the IWC Wage Orders and any Labor Code provisions that enforce requirements set forth in the Wage Orders. Although neither the Ninth Circuit nor the DLSE can authoritatively interpret California law, these developments indicate that Dynamex’s scope—which governs hundreds of thousands of independent contractor relationships throughout the state—has continued to expand its already extensive reach.
Continue Reading The Future of Independent Contractors: Ninth Circuit Applies Dynamex Retroactively and the DLSE Issues Opinion Letter Expanding Its Scope

In a 2010 decision, Stolt-Nielsen S. A. v. Animalfeeds International Corp., the United States Supreme Court held that parties may not be compelled to submit to class arbitration under the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA) unless there is a contractual basis for concluding that they agreed to do so. The Court held that such an agreement could not be presumed from the fact that the arbitration agreement is “silent” on the issue of class arbitration or the mere fact that the parties agreed to arbitrate.
Continue Reading U.S. Supreme Court Upholds Individualized Arbitration Where Agreement Is Ambiguous on Issue of Class Arbitration