As we approach the holiday season, employers may have uncertainty about handling holiday pay and related issues with holiday closures.

Under California law, hours worked on holidays, Saturdays, and Sundays are treated like hours worked on any other day of the week. In other words, there is no requirement that employers pay an employee a

Data privacy and security regulation is growing rapidly around the world, including in the United States. In addition to strengthening the requirements to secure personal data, individuals are being given an increasing array of rights concerning the collection, use, disclosure, sale, and processing of their personal information. Meanwhile, organizations’ growing appetite for more data, and

On April 20, 2016, a class action lawsuit was filed in the United States District Court, Southern District of California against Sprouts Farmers Market, Inc. The lawsuit was initiated by a former employee whose W-2 was allegedly disclosed as part of a phishing scam that occurred in late March 2016 amid reports that Sprouts’ employees had their IRS tax refunds stolen. According to the complaint, the W-2s of Sprouts’ employees were disclosed to a third party as a result of the phishing scam.

This sort of internet scam, referred to as “phishing,” occurs when someone attempts to acquire sensitive or confidential information under the guise of a legitimate request. For the average internet user, phishing scams often come in the form of a fake email from a bank or other financial institution asking you to click on a link to confirm your password on a web site that looks like a legitimate web site for the business. The fake web site often uses the actual logos and branding from a legitimate site to trick the user.
Continue Reading Employers Beware of Phishing Scams

On October 5, 2015, Governor Jerry Brown signed into law a bill confirming that employees in the health care industry can waive one of their two meal periods when working a shift of over eight hours in a workday. This law clarifies confusion caused by a recently decided appellate case, Gerard v. Orange Coast Memorial Medical Center, 234 Cal.App.4th 285 (C.A. 4th, 2015) (review granted). The Gerard case is currently under review by the California Supreme Court.
Continue Reading Health Care Workers Allowed to Waive Meal Period

The Second Appellate District of California recently held that a third party must comply with a subpoena requesting data in a format different than the manner in which the data was maintained where the requesting party offered to pay the reasonable cost of translating the data into the requested form.  In Daniel Vasquez v. California School of Culinary Arts, Inc., the appeal was between plaintiffs in a putative class action, and third party, Sallie Mae, Inc.  Sallie Mae was previously involved in the litigation, but had been dismissed from the action at the time of the subpoena in question.  The case involved a putative class action of culinary students who sought records of their student loans from Sallie Mae.
Continue Reading Data Production in Different Form than Maintained was Required Where Requesting Party Offered to Pay Reasonable Cost Under Pre-2013 Employment Records Subpoena