Recently in Employment Law Category

After five years of legal wrangling, Perez Hilton (real name: Mario Lavandeira) has won an email privacy battle in arbitration, The Hollywood Reporter reports.

A disgruntled reader sued Perez after he published a nasty email she sent him, along with her name and unredacted email address. (Back in the day when we still read his site, Perez would occasionally publish these types of messages -- usually containing anti-gay rants -- under the heading "You Are an Idiot.") The sender, Diane Wargo, wanted Perez to cough up $25 million because she received threatening email messages and lost her job after he published the post.

That didn't go so well for her.

This week, a ‘Price is Right’ model’s $7.7 million discrimination judgment slipped from her grasp like the elusive $1.00 mark on the show’s famous Big Wheel. But just like the contestant vying for a spot in the Showcase Showdown, Brandi Cochran will get a second spin in court, The Hollywood Reporter reports.

If you’ve never seen the ‘Price is Right,’ then clearly you have never stayed home from school or work for a sick day. Fear not, we’ll take this opportunity to enlighten you.

Mixed-motive termination cases in California just got a little more interesting.

The California Supreme Court ruled last week that a jury in a mixed-motive case alleging unlawful termination should be instructed that it must find the employer's action was substantially motivated by discrimination before the burden shifts to the employer to make a same-decision showing, and that a same-decision showing precludes an award of reinstatement, backpay, or damages.

A contract of adhesion isn’t necessarily unconscionable.

Maribel Baltazar is a “married woman of Mexican ancestry.” She began working for Forever 21 as an associate in the company’s downtown Los Angeles distribution center in November 2007.

Make sure your clients get the memo: California employers and universities can no longer demand Facebook and Twitter passwords.

Thursday, Gov. Jerry Brown signed two bills that make it illegal for companies or universities to ask for access to personal social media or email accounts, the San Jose Mercury News reports.

The United States Department of Justice is giving its opinion on the pending California Supreme Court case of Sergio Garcia.

Unfortunately for Garcia’s case, the DOJ isn’t in favor of illegal immigrants practicing law in the United States, reports The Wall Street Journal.

In an earlier post, we talked about the limited enforceability of non-compete clauses in California employment agreements, when we discussed Marissa Mayer’s move from Google to Yahoo.

Now, a California Court of Appeals has decided a case involving arbitration clauses in employment agreements. The court invalidated such a clause in a Neiman Marcus employment agreement.

Charter schools and teachers unions mix about as well as oil and water. So it's no surprise to see a teachers union oppose a plan to convert a standard public school into a charter school.

Seeing such a battle go all the way to the California Supreme Court on the question of arbitration is slightly less common.

The California Supreme Court has put a lot of thought into employee rest breaks this year.

In April, the court ruled that employers must make meal breaks available, but they don't have to force wage workers to take a break for a meal.

This week, the court ruled that a prevailing party cannot collect attorney's fees after winning a meal or rest break dispute.

The California Supreme Court ruled today that employers must make meal breaks available, but they don’t have to force wage workers to take a break for a meal.

The decision resolves the nine-year-old Brinker Restaurant Corp. v. Superior Court of San Diego lawsuit. The plaintiffs in the case argued that Brinker, which owns restaurants like Chili’s Grill & Bar and Maggiano’s Little Italy, failed to provide employees the breaks, or premium wages in lieu of breaks, that they were guaranteed by law.