December 2020

In mid-November, as cases continued to rise, the California Department of Public Health issued a “travel advisory” which recommended quarantining for those who returned to the state from other states or countries. The advisory distinguished between “non-essential travel” such as tourism and “essential travel” such as for work, study, economic services, immediate medical…

Most of California is currently subject to the state’s Regional Stay at Home Order and  COVID-19 cases surging around the state. Meanwhile, federal and state supplemental paid sick leave benefits available to employees in California will soon expire.

The Families First Coronavirus Response Act (“FFCRA”), which includes paid sick leave obligations for employers with less…

While the California courts were relatively quiet during 2020, the California Supreme Court has a few heavy-hitting employment cases pending for 2021.

Here are the cases employers should be watching in the new year and why.

Donohue v. AMN Services, LLC

AMN Services (“AMN”) used a computer-based timekeeping system, which required employees such as Plaintiff…

On December 3, 2020, the state issued a new regional stay-at-home order which requires additional industries to close or scale back operations based on intensive care unit (ICU) capacity in the region. The order separates the state into five separate regions, as opposed to the county-by-county approach used in previous regulations. The Bay Area region…

The deadline for employers to comply with California’s pay data reporting requirement (Senate Bill 973) and submit pay data to the Department of Fair Employment and Housing (DFEH) is March 31, 2021.

The DFEH has launched an information page that provides needed clarity on certain obligations and has issued additional guidance on the…

Shortly before Thanksgiving, California’s Department of Industrial Relations Occupational Safety & Health Standards Board (“Board”) adopted a general safety order that creates an emergency temporary standard specific to potential workplace COVID-19 exposures (“Rule”). The Rule was quietly approved by the Office of Administrative Law without detailed analysis on November 30th and went into effect…

On December 1, Judge Jeffrey S. White granted the plaintiffs’ request to set aside two separate rules issued by the Trump Administration that would have drastically undermined the ability of employers to utilize both the H-1B and PERM visa programs. In Chamber of Commerce of the United States v. United States Department of Homeland Security,…