The article featured in Location Matters by Lauren Bushman, Associate at TencerSherman Employee handbooks are like a good sunscreen, one generally does not realize the importance of protection until they get burned. Employment claims are on the rise and can be detrimental to a restaurateur’s company culture and business success. With the intense nature of the restaurant industry, including high employee turnover, minimal profit margin, and cutthroat competition, restaurateurs cannot afford employee lawsuits. The good news is that the risk of employee lawsuits…

After nearly two decades of litigation, the California Supreme Court pronounced a new standard for determining whether a worker is categorized as an employee or independent contractor. In this decision, delivery drivers who were once categorized as employees and later reclassified as independent contractors filed suit alleging they performed the same tasks despite their classification change. The new test is a short and sweet 3-prong standard, which makes it drastically more difficult for businesses to classify their works as independent contractors.…

TencerSherman is proud to announce that Sam Sherman was selected for the 2018 San Diego Super Lawyers list. Here's your chance to catch up on the latest happenings of excellent attorneys in your area with the release of the 2018 San Diego Super Lawyers Magazine. The digital version contains the entire print publication. To access the archive of the Super Lawyers Magazine digital editions, click here.

The California Supreme Court dealt another blow to employers defending wage and hour litigation in California by ruling that PAGA plaintiffs do not need to show good cause to justify broad discovery of the names and contact information of all potentially aggrieved employees at the outset of the case. In Williams v. Superior Court (Marshalls of California), the plaintiff filed a representative claim under the Private Attorneys General Act (“PAGA”) against Marshalls on behalf of all non-exempt California employees alleging various labor…

Many employers require employees to sign agreements that waive their right to bring a case in state court and agree to bring any claims through arbitration. Such agreements are generally enforceable as long as they contain required language. The question in this case is whether these contracts are enforceable when an employee files a claim with the Labor Commissioner instead of in state court. Recently, an auto mechanic filed a wage claim for $100,000 with the California Labor Commissioner against his…

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeal recently held that an employer’s attorney could be liable for retaliation after he reported an undocumented employee in a wage and hour claim to the Immigration and Custom Enforcement agency. (Arias v. Raimondo (9th Cir. June 22, 2017, No. 15-16120), 2017 WL 2676771.) In Arias v. Raimondo, the employee, Arias, sued his former employer’s attorney, Raimondo, because the attorney reported Arias to ICE to take him into custody at his deposition in his wage and…

Back in May, the California Supreme Court clarified an employer’s obligation to provide its employees with a weekly day of rest when employees filed a suit against Nordstrom. (Read the article here.) After the Court held that Nordstrom did not violate the Labor Code because the employees did not work more than six consecutive days in any Nordstrom workweek, the employees circled back for one more try at their claims under the Private Attorney General Act (PAGA). PAGA allows an…

California enacted the Small Business Gender Discrimination in Services Compliance Act (Assembly Bill Number 1615) at the end of July, which expands existing law regarding prohibition on gender-based pricing discrimination. The existing law prohibits a business from discriminating on the basis of a person’s gender with respect to the price charged for services of similar or like kind. However, a business may charge different prices based specifically upon the amount of time, difficulty, or cost of providing the service. Specified business,…