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On June 8, 2020, the U.S. Supreme Court denied the employer’s petition for certiorari in OTO, LLC v. Kho.

As background, in 2019, the California Supreme Court ruled in OTO that the arbitration agreement at issue was not enforceable because the agreement was both procedurally and substantively unconscionable. The procedural unconscionability finding generally focused…

Whether the Establishment and Free Exercise Clauses prevent civil courts from adjudicating employment discrimination claims brought by employees against their religious employer, where the employee carried out important religious functions, is the question presented in two consolidated cases before the U.S. Supreme Court: Our Lady of Guadalupe School v. Morrissey-Berru, No. 19-267, and St. James…

Waiting to go through a security screening and then being screened is not compensable time under federal wage-hour law, the U.S. Supreme Court decided in a case issued today (December 9).  But don’t expect California courts to interpret California law in the same way.

In an opinion by Justice Clarence Thomas in Integrity Staffing Solutions, Inc. v. Busk, the Court unanimously ruled that when hourly employees waited for and then went through an antitheft security screen at Amazon.com warehouses, they were engaged in “noncompensable postliminary activities” under the federal Portal-to Portal Act because the screenings “were not the ‘principal activity or activities which [the] employee is employed to perform.’”   The ruling reversed a decision by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.
Continue Reading Security Screening Time Need Not Be Paid, SCOTUS Rules – Expect California Law to Differ

With increasing frequency, California courts (especially federal district courts) are enforcing binding arbitration agreements between employers and employees.  In Richards v. Ernst & Young, No. 11-17530 (9th Cir. Aug. 21, 2013), the Ninth Circuit recently reversed a denial of the employer’s motion to compel arbitration of the employee’s wage and hour claims.  In so…

On Wednesday the United States Supreme Court issued two decisions that expand same-sex marriage rights. In the first, United States v. Windsor, the Court ruled unconstitutional a law denying federal recognition of legally-married same-sex couples. In the second, Hollingsworth, et al. v. Perry, the Court…   Click here to read the full article.

In Vance v. Ball State University, No. 11-556 (June 24, 2013), the United States Supreme Court defined “supervisory” authority under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1962 as requiring the power to make “a significant change in employment status, such as hiring, firing, failing to promote, reassignment with significantly different responsibilities, or…

Continuing to uphold the enforcement of arbitration agreements, the U.S. Supreme Court has struck down the California courts’ refusal to enforce class action waivers in consumer arbitration agreements on the ground that the state law is preempted by the Federal Arbitration Act. AT&T Mobility LLC v. Concepcion, No. 09-893 (Apr. 27, 2011). The ruling would…