Beginning as early as June 30, 2020, California employers with 5 or more California-based employees not already offering an employer-sponsored retirement plan will have to begin offering a retirement savings program, either through the private market or by facilitating access to CalSavers, the state-run program.

The CalSavers program, established under SB 1234 in 2012, is intended to assist the estimated 7.5 million California employees without employer retirement savings plans. A pilot program was undertaken in late 2018, and beginning July 1, 2019, eligible ...

Employers with at least 100 employees, and federal contractors with contract of at least $50,000 and 50 or more employees, are well aware of the EEO-1 report requirement. EEO-1 reports are due on March 31 of each year and include data on employee race/ethnicity and gender, called “Component 1” data.  Component 1 data is submitted through a web portal maintained by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and is used by the EEOC and the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs to gauge compliance with federal equal opportunity laws. This year’s deadline was extended ...

As required by the California Consumer Privacy Act of 2018 (the “CCPA”), the California Attorney General’s Office (the “AG”) is hard at work crafting regulations related to the CCPA to be implemented by July 1, 2020.  The CCPA will go into effect on January 1, 2020, but the AG’s enforcement will not be initiated until later that year.  In the meantime, consumers and businesses alike are anxiously awaiting the AG’s first draft of the regulations.  The AG’s regulations are intended to clarify certain ambiguities in the CCPA and outline and implement rules for businesses to ...

Q: I am a receiver in a Ponzi scheme case. While I know I can sue to recover excess payments made to investors in the scheme, the false profit they were paid, per Donell v. Kowell, 533 F3d 762 (9th Cir. 2008), in my case large sums were paid as referral or broker fees to get investors to invest. Are those payments recoverable in the Ninth Circuit?

A: Yes. While there has been split in cases across the county on the issue, the majority view has been such payments are fraudulent transfers, because no “value” is given for the services rendered. Compare, Warfield v. Byron, 436 F3d 551, 560 (5th Cir ...

On July 3, 2019, Governor Gavin Newsom signed into law Senate Bill 188, the Crown Act (Create a Respectful and Open Workplace for Natural Hair).

The text of the law includes an explanation for its purpose. In pertinent part, SB 188 states that the “history of our nation is riddled with laws and societal norms that equated ‘blackness,’ and the associated physical traits, for example, dark skin, kinky and curly hair to a badge of inferiority, sometimes subject to separate and unequal treatment.” It goes on to state that the societal understanding of “professionalism was, and ...

On July 1st, the City of Los Angeles will raise the minimum wage for employers with at least 26 employees to $14.25, and for employers with fewer than 26 employees to $13.25.

In determining whether this increase applies to a particular employee, employers should know that it is not where an employee lives, nor where an employer is based, that determines the minimum wage that must be paid.  Rather, it is where the employee works that matters.  All employees working in a particular week for at least 2 hours within the City of Los Angeles are entitled to payment of the applicable minimum wage under ...

The California Department of Fair Employment and Housing (DFEH) recently issued a new Certification of Health Care Provider form that employers may use for medical certification when an employee requests leave under the California Family Rights Act (CFRA) or the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA), due to the employee’s or the employee’s family member’s serious health condition.

This form is particularly useful to California employers for the reason that, unlike the Department of Labor FMLA health care provider certification forms, the DFEH form excludes questions ...

Q: I am a receiver, but not an attorney. During the receivership some legal matters came up and I used my in-house counsel and an outside attorney to handle the matters. My order of appointment states I can hire attorneys, but does not specifically state who. I have filed my final account and report and the defendant is objecting, stating my attorneys are not entitled to be paid because there was no court order specifically authorizing their employment. Was that necessary?

A: Yes. California Rules of Court, Rule 3.1180 states: “A receiver must not employ an attorney without the approval ...

A recent California Court of Appeal ruling significantly expands the conditions under which the reporting time pay rule in California will apply. Skylar Ward v. Tilly’s, Inc. involved retail clothing store workers who were assigned on-call shifts, but did not know if they must report to work for each shift until they made a required call to the employer two (2) hours in advance of the shift.

Under all California Wage Orders, including Wage Order No. 7 that applies to retail workers, reporting time pay must be paid for each workday an employee is required to report for work and does ...

Senate Bill 1343, which became effective on January 1, 2019, requires that every California employer with at least five employees or independent contractors provide two hours of interactive harassment and abusive conduct prevention training for their managers and supervisors, and conduct this training thereafter every two years and within six months of a person’s placement into a supervisory or management position. SB 1343 also requires that these employers provide interactive harassment training to their non-supervisory employees of at least one hour, and thereafter ...