On January 21, 2015, a California Appeals Court affirmed the trial court’s ruling in Nealy v. City of Santa Monica, 2015 Cal. App. LEXIS 139 (February 13, 2015) granting summary judgment for the City of Santa Monica (“City”) on claims of disability discrimination, failure to provide reasonable accommodation, failure to engage in the interactive process, and retaliation by a City employee.  
Continue Reading Reasonable Accommodation’s Mandate in Employment Statute Does Not Require Employer to Cut Essential Job Functions

California has become the third state in the country, after New York and Oregon, to ban sexual harassment and discrimination in the workplace directed toward unpaid interns.

The new law (AB 1443) extends workplace harassment and discrimination protections under the California Fair Employment and Housing Act (“FEHA”) to unpaid interns, volunteers, and individuals in apprenticeship training programs. It will go into effect January 1, 2015.
Continue Reading California Law Protects Unpaid Interns and Volunteers from Harassment and Discrimination

In Salas v. Sierra Chemical Co., No. S196568 (Cal. June 26, 2014), the California Supreme Court has ruled that federal immigration law did not preempt California law extending employee protections and remedies “regardless of immigration status,” except to the extent it authorized damages for any period after the employer’s discovery of an employee’s ineligibility

On May 22, 2014, a California District Court conditionally certified a nationwide collective action covering about 1,500 female employees of Daiichi Sankyo Inc. (“DSI”) who allege the drug company paid them less than their male peers, ruling that the plaintiffs had met the low evidentiary burden to move forward collectively.

In SARA WELLENS, et al.,

On May 15, 2014, the California Assembly passed a proposed amendment to California’s statute governing sexual harassment training.

Currently, the statute requires employers with 50 or more employees to ensure workplaces are free of sexual harassment by providing training to their supervisory employees at least once every two years.  Such training must include information regarding

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So you’re a startup. You’ve decided to take your world-changing idea and move it out of your dorm room/garage/favorite-table-at-Starbucks and start a legitimate business. So what next?

If you plan on

On April 30, 2014, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit reinstated a lawsuit filed by Plaintiff Ronald El-Malik Curtis against the City of Oakland, and several individual city officials on the ground that facially-neutral conduct could support a finding of racial animus sufficient to sustain a hostile work environment claim when

Timing is not everything. In Rope v. Auto-Chlor of Washington System of Washington, Inc., the employer fired an employee for purported performance reasons on December 30, 2010 – two days before California’s Michelle Malkin Donor Protection Act became effective.   The timing was significant because when the employee was hired in October of 2010, he

On October 10, 2013, California Gov. Jerry Brown signed a bill, A.B. 556, to add “military and veteran status” to the list of categories protected from employment discrimination under the California Fair Employment and Housing Act (“FEHA”).

When this bill becomes operative on January 1, 2014, the FEHA will prohibit harassment and discrimination in

In Harris v. City of Santa Monica, 56 Cal. 4th 203 (Cal. 2013), the California Supreme Court ruled that, to prevail in a mixed motive employment discrimination action, the employee must show that unlawful discrimination was a substantial factor motivating the adverse employment decision.  Further, in mixed motive cases, if the employer proves that