Petition to Review Deputy Disability Discrimination Case Declined

A petition filed by Stanislaus County requesting a review of Deputy Dennis Wallace’s disability discrimination case was declined. Deputy Wallace was seeking $468,000 after the county placed him on unpaid leave for two years post-injury. Wallace claims that the county placed him on leave due to an inaccurate assessment of his ability to perform his duties as bailiff (even with reasonable accommodation provided). In a 2012 trial the case ended with a hung jury. The deputy lost the discrimination case after a jury heard it in 2013, but the state appeals court overturned the jury verdict in February.  

After the appeals court’s decision, the county argued that the state’s highest court review the ruling as the decision would make it easier for disabled or injured workers to prove claims of discrimination against their employers. When their petition for review was declined, the county saw it as a big disappointment. They were equally disappointed that the appellate court did not allow the jury to come to the final decision regarding whether or not the county behaved in a discriminatory manner towards the deputy.

The appeals court determined that the superior court judge was in error when he advised the jury that Wallace was required to prove that the county was biased against disabled employees. They remanded the case back to superior court asking them to set the amount of damages owed Wallace for a specified time period: January 5th, 2011 through January 30th, 2013. It was further decided that any financial consequences due to an employer’s mistaken assumption or conclusion that an employee is unable to perform job duties safely should be the responsibility of the employer – not the employee. They noted that this would hold true even in cases where the employer’s mistake was made in good faith. Due to the prejudicial nature of the “instructional error” involved, they remanded the disability discrimination claim for retrial.

The rejection of the case review by the California Supreme Court means that the county can be held to a new, strict liability standard that, prior to the appellate court decision on the Wallace case, did not exist.

If you are interested in hearing more information disability discrimination or if you need assistance with a disability discrimination claim, please contact one of the experienced southern California employment law attorneys at Blumenthal, Nordrehaug & Bhowmik.

Former Jimmy Choo Employee Claims Discrimination and Wrongful Termination

A former Jimmy Choo employee, John Ornelas, claims that after enduring harassment and discrimination at the hands of his supervisor for being gay, he reported the problem and was fired from the Beverly Hills store in retaliation.  The suit was filed in Los Angeles Superior Court on April 15th against the former employer, Jimmy Choo, and the former boss, Nikki Raffasha. The suit listed allegations of both wrongful termination and discrimination based on sexual orientation and race and seeks unspecified damages.

According to the suit, Ornelas was hired in 2011 as a Jimmy Choo sales associate. The nextyear he started work at the Beverly Hills store located on Via Rodeo Drive. After completing a month on the job, Ornelas claims that Raffasha started to insult and mock him regularly – often using derogatory terms describing both his race and sexual orientation. Ornelas further claims that the derogatory terms were flippantly used - even after the death of Ornelas’ partner of 12 years.

Ornelas claims that multiple reports submitted regarding the alleged harassment and discrimination had no results. He saw no improvement to the situation. In October 2015, the problem escalated when Raffasha took one of Ornelas’ sales and reported as her own. Ornelas states that he confronted his boss regarding the sale and that her response was to indicate that anyone would choose her over him – referring to him as “gay, Mexican trash.”

In response to this incident, management credited the disputed sale to Ornelas, but two days later he was fired from his job at Jimmy Choo.

If you have experienced discrimination on the job or if you have been fired from your job in retaliation for reporting a hostile work environment, please contact the southern California employment law attorneys at Blumenthal, Nordrehaug and Bhowmik.

Drivers’ Employment Status Leaves Uber Being Sued…Again!

Uber is being sued again. The question of the Uber drivers’ employment status has opened the class action floodgates. Within two weeks of the settlement of $100 million for class action lawsuits in California and Massachusetts that sought driver reclassification from independent contractors to employees, Uber is fielding two new cases against their company.

Following the California and Massachusetts case resolution, similar nationwide class-action lawsuits have been filed on behalf of Uber drivers in both Florida and Illinois courts. The drivers (plaintiffs) allege that Uber, a San Francisco company, is in violation of the Fair Labor Standard Act. The new suits seek unpaid overtime wages and work-related expenses on behalf of drivers.

The class action suit that was filed in Illinois takes the familiar allegations to a new level by attempting to recover tips that drivers earned which they allege the company stole from them or caused them to lose through Uber policies and communications.

Legal representation for the Illinois class action lawsuit indicated that the settlement with California and Massachusetts drivers was an obvious attempt by Uber to band aid the situation when it called for much more drastic methods. Many drivers who work using the Uber service do so as a means of supporting themselves and their families. They need the protection of wage and hour laws and overtime pay requirements, just as much as the rest of the workers in the nation.

Uber responded to the new legal activity with a statement indicating that 90% of their drivers work with Uber because they enjoy being their own boss and that the reclassification of drivers from independent contractors as employees would take that away from them. They would no longer have the flexibility that the status of independent contractor affords. Uber “employees” would have designated shifts, a fixed hourly wage that would limit their earnings, and prohibitions would keep them from driving for additional ride-sharing apps.

If you have questions about the misclassification of workers or if you are an independent contractor and have questions about misclassification of employees, please get in touch with the southern California employment law attorneys at Blumenthal, Nordrehaug and Bhowmik.

Farmers Insurance Co. Sued by Female Attorneys for Pay Discrimination

Female attorneys employed by Farmers Insurance Co. filed suit alleging that the company paid them less than the male attorneys employed by the company. The pay discrimination class action group reached a $4.1 million deal with the insurance company in California federal court. The settlement amount is to be split amongst 300 women who either are or were employed by Farmers as attorneys working as claims litigators throughout the past 4-5 years. The agreement requires that Farmers Insurance Co. hire an outside human resources professional to consult on an independent basis.

Also as a part of the resolution of the case, Farmers agrees to a three-year injunction that sets down a new set of rules for treating female employees. In addition to hiring the independent human resources consultant, Farmers will be required to abide by the rules set down in the injunction. The rules include a requirement to allow attorney employees to openly discuss their pay rates with one another, the conducting of a statistical analysis of pay rates each year, strive to promote more female lawyers in the company, move more women employees into higher pay grades, etc.

The lead plaintiff, Lynne Coates, alleged that a male colleague handling a similar workload and job duties was paid from $150,000-200,000. In comparison Coates’ salary was capped at $100,000. When Coates lodged a complaint, she was “demoted” from her position in the company as an attorney and asked to handle other, lesser duties.

The suit was filed in April of 2015. It involved both federal and California state equal-pay laws. It was also among the first of this type of suit to test California’s new Fair Pay Act (effective 2016). The settlement discussed and agreed on between the parties is still waiting for approval from the U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh of the Northern District of California with a June 23rd hearing already scheduled.

If you have questions regarding pay discrimination or California’s state equal-pay laws, please get in touch with the experienced southern California employment law attorneys at Blumenthal, Nordrehaug and Bhowmik.

Driving a Truck For Deluxe Auto Carriers? You May Owed $$$

On March 23, 2016, the San Diego labor law attorneys at Blumenthal, Nordrehaug & Bhowmik filed a class action lawsuit against Core-Mark International, Inc. alleging that the transportation company failed to lawfully compensate their Truck Drivers for all their time spent working, including time spent while not driving the company's trucks. The class action lawsuit against Core-Mark International, Inc., is currently pending in the San Diego County Superior Court, Case No. 37-2016-00009669-CU-OE-CTL. To read a copy of the Complaint, please click here.

The class action lawsuit alleges that Plaintiff and other truck drivers working for the Core-Mark in California are paid on a piece-rate basis. The lawsuit claims that the truck drivers are not paid all minimum wages for all their hours worked because of Core-Mark's alleged failure to record all time worked. 

Many trucking companies pay their truck drivers by the mile or by the load.  These types of payment schemes do not pay truck drivers for all the time they actually work, including time when the wheels are not spinning on the road, including but not limited to the work performed during pre-trip and post-trip inspections and time spent allegedly waiting for loads to be ready for transport.

There are other truck drivers in California working for trucking companies that should be getting paid minimum wages.  Deluxe Auto Carriers (or Excel Transporting & Towing) truck drivers are likely owed minimum wages and payments for missed meal and rest periods

According to the company's website, Deluxe Auto Carriers provides services in the automobile transport industry.  If you are a truck driver for Deluxe Auto carriers, and would like to file a Deluxe Auto Carriers lawsuit.  Click here to speak to an attorney with experience handling trucking cases.

California Supreme Court Says Employers Should Provide a Seat

The California Supreme Court recently found that workers whose jobs can be done at least in part while sitting, should be forced to stand by their employer. Many employees will agree that fulfilling a job while standing can take its toll – particularly when discussing long term employment. The Supreme Court’s decision regarding suitable seating cases will allow employees to literally take a load off by requiring employers to give their workers chairs.

Bowlin, a member of the class action lawsuit against CVS, cited long term health issues due to standing (including varicose veins, etc.) The class action suitable seating lawsuit against CVS, popular pharmacy chain, is one of dozens filed throughout California in the last several years. All cite allegations against employers that require their employees to stand. The Supreme Court ruling was unanimous, clarifying labor law in a way that will make it fairly difficult for employers to deny their workers with a chair on the job.

Justice Carol A. Corrigan explained more regarding what employment situations fall into this category: when an employee spends a large part of the workday in a single spot completing job duties that can be done while sitting down (even if other job duties need to be completed in a standing position).

The “totality of the circumstances” determines whether or not a worker is entitled to have a seat on the job. This totality of circumstances consists of: whether a job duty can be completed from a sitting position, whether the seated employee would disrupt job performance, and the physical layout of the workplace and its suitability for seating. Having said that, the court also stated that employers should not design workspaces to “further a preference for standing” and that, in fact, employers should consider whether or not the workspace could be reasonably rearranged in order to accommodate a chair.

This clarification of employment law is expected to affect almost every industry across California. Employers will no longer be able to legally require employees to stand on the job all day in a fixed spot if the tasks required for the job can be completed while the employee is seated.

If you have questions regarding how this clarification of employment law will affect your workplace, please get in touch with the experienced southern California employment law attorneys at Blumenthal, Nordrehaug and Bhowmik.

Employment Law History: California Increases Minimum Wage

California is making history again, but this time the history will be recorded in the legal treatises studied by employment law attorneys. When the governor signed Senate Bill 3, California became the first state in the nation to increase the minimum wage to $15 per hour by 2022. This increase will provide six million California residents with increased earnings.

Many cite this increase as a big step in the fight for gender justice as six out of every ten minimum wage workers in the state are female (with women of color being disproportionately represented in the group). 23% of minimum wage employees in the nation are women of color. In comparison, women of color only represent 16% of the American workforce as a whole. More than 1/3 of California’s minimum wage employees also have children under their care for which they need to provide financial support.

The numbers regarding the minimum wage worker demographic in California made Senate Bill 3 a lead bill in the 2016 Stronger California campaign that many have heard discussed. The campaign was chaired by Equal Rights Advocates with top advocacy coalitions acting as co-lead. It has become known as a historic bid to ensure that California’s women and communities as a whole will enjoy economic security. This 2016 Stronger California campaign also enjoyed a celebratory victory in 2015 when the California Fair Pay Act was passed, creating the strongest equal pay law in the United States.

Many California minimum wage workers see the increase as a tremendous help that will drastically alleviate financial problems associated with low income. Today’s minimum wage workers tend to worry check-to-check, work multiple jobs, and stress about having enough to cover the bare necessities. This makes Senate Bill 3 very popular amongst this group. They see it as a positive move in the right direction and hope that the positive movement will continue. There’s still more work to be done in order to ensure economic security. The Stronger California campaign also works toward policies and budget changes to address issues with: poverty, accessibility of child care, promotion of fair pay and job opportunities, and family friendly employment.

If you have questions about California’s Senate Bill 3 or the 2016 Stronger California campaign, please get in touch with one of the experienced employment law attorneys at Blumenthal, Nordrehaug and Bhowmik.