Class Actions

In this informative 75-minute webinar (including a question and answer session at the end), Hirschfeld Kraemer Partners Derek Ishikawa, Ferry Lopez and Monte Grix will cover major employment law developments for 2024 and help you get thinking of what your business needs to do to avoid being a target of litigation. The topics to be…

Last week, the California Supreme Court issued a highly anticipated decision in Estrada v. Royalty Carpet Mills, Inc., finding that trial courts cannot strike claims under the Private Attorneys General Act of 2004 (PAGA) due to concerns about their “manageability.” Since PAGA was enacted twenty years ago, there has been a massive surge in lawsuits…

Last week, the California Supreme Court issued its long-awaited decision in Adolph v. Uber Technologies, Inc. to determine the effect of arbitration agreements on claims for penalties brought by employees under the Private Attorneys General Act of 2004 (PAGA). Unfortunately, this ruling does not offer employers one clear-cut way to deal with these disputes. For…

If you use a staffing agency for your workforce, the California Supreme Court just issued an important decision that may affect your rights. In Grande v. Eisenhower Medical Center, the California Supreme Court held that a wage-hour class action settlement for $750,000 between an employee and the staffing company did not preclude the employee from…

On June 15, 2022, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a bellwether decision that has the potential to dramatically decrease employers’ exposure under California’s Private Attorneys General Act of 2004 (PAGA). PAGA has bedeviled California employers for nearly two decades now, leaving employers responsible for billions of dollars in Labor Code penalties and attorney’s fees. The…

The employment law landscape is always shifting, and there’s a lot to navigate, especially as the pandemic drags into its third year. On February 14, 2022, Hirschfeld Kraemer lawyers Steve Hirschfeld, Hieu Williams, Monte Grix, and Ferry Lopez presented a 90-minute webinar providing insight on the hottest developments in labor and employment law in 2021,…

Last week, in Donohue v. AMN Services, LLC, the California Supreme Court handed down a very important, if unsurprising, decision regarding wage and hour class actions. There are three critically important takeaways for employers: An employer cannot round employee meal period punches — only exact time will work, as any non-compliance (even as minor as…

On December 18, 2019, Hirschfeld Kraemer attorneys Kirstin Muller, Alison Hamer, Benjamin Treger, and China Westfall presented a one-hour webinar, “California Employment Laws 2020: Your Survival Guide.” The webinar provided a comprehensive overview of what employers need to know in order to stay in compliance in 2020. 2019 was a remarkable year in California employment law. Sacramento lawmakers…

Unless you have been living under a rock for, oh, the last 15 years or so, you know how vexing PAGA (the California Private Attorneys General Act of 2004) can be for employers. As we have blogged in the past, PAGA is an extraordinarily broad law that provides a private right of action to “aggrieved…

On September 4, 2020, Governor Newsom signed A.B. 2257, follow-up legislation to A.B. 5, California’s landmark 2019 law that radically changed the state’s treatment of employees and independent contractors by replacing the longstanding Borello classification test. The new law attempts to clean up many industry-specific provisions that became more apparent after A.B. 5 became law….