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Travis Anderson is a partner in the Labor and Employment and Business Trial Practice Groups in the firm's San Diego (Del Mar) office. He is a member of the Trade Secrets team.

California has passed two new items of legislation, Senate Bill 699 and Assembly Bill 1076, which will further regulate and restrict the enforcement of employment non-compete agreements in California, and expand the scope of remedies for those affected by them. These new laws will become effective on January 1, 2024, and now is the time for employers to assess and revise their employment-related agreements and restrictive covenants accordingly. As detailed below, they also require employers to notify employees and certain former employees by February 15, 2024 that certain non-compete provisions are void. The two new laws are detailed below.Continue Reading California Strengthens Non-Competition Law

On September 10, 2014, California Governor Jerry Brown signed into law the Healthy Workplaces, Healthy Families Act of 2014.  As a result, most employers in California will be required to provide up to 24 hours (3 days) of paid sick leave to their employees beginning July 1, 2015.  The following are some of the key requirements of the Act.
Continue Reading California Enacts New Law Mandating Paid Sick Leave for Employees

It now should be clear to employers in California that the litigation rules are different as to what must be presented in discrimination lawsuits to succeed. Notably, just last week, in Alamo v. Practice Management Information Corp., B230909 (2nd Dist., Div. 7, Sept. 5, 2013), the California Court of Appeal held that the former versions of jury instructions – CACI Nos. 2430, 2500, 2505, and 2507 – are invalid in light of the California Supreme Court’s decision earlier this year in Harris v. City of Santa Monica, 56 Cal.4th 203 (2013), because a FEHA discrimination claimant now is required to show that the protected status was a “substantial motivating reason” for the adverse action, and not merely “a motivating reason,” as the earlier versions of the jury instructions stated. The Alamo court also held that the employer was prevented from asserting the mixed motive defense at trial, because its answer did not put the plaintiff on notice that the defense was at issue. As such, going forward, an employer always should plead at the outset of the case (assuming that there is some basis for such an assertion) that it had a legitimate non discriminatory reason for the adverse employment decision, and that it would have made the same decision even in the absence of any purported unlawful motive.

Continue Reading In the wake of the California Supreme Court’s Harris Decision, A FEHA Claimant Must Show Discrimination was a “Substantial Motivating Factor” and An Employer Waives its Mixed-Motive Defense by Failing to Assert It in Its Answer

In Elijahjuan v. Superior Court, Case No. B234794 (2nd Dist, Div. 8, Oct. 17, 2012), the California Court of Appeal held that the specific language of an agreement did not require plaintiffs to arbitrate their claims for misclassification as independent contractors in a wage and hour putative class action, concluding that the arbitration language covered only disputes arising from the “application or interpretation” of the plaintiffs’ work agreements.
Continue Reading In A 2-to-1 Split Decision, The California Court Of Appeal Parses The Language Of An Agreement And Denies Arbitration Of California Labor Code Claims