In March of 2010, a distinguished three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed its opinion in Rutti v. Lojack Corporation and issued a replacement decision. In Rutti the Court was asked to determine whether an employee is entitled to compensation for time spent commuting in a company vehicle, and for time spent at home after work entering data into the company’s computer.

Initially, the Court held that Rutti was [...]

Last week, in Vonda Norris-Wilson v. Delta-T Group, Inc., the federal district court in the Southern District of California granted class certification to a group of plaintiffs alleging they were employees, not independent contractors.

The Plaintiffs allege that Delta-T is a temporary staffing agency, that they were misclassified as independent [...]

Over the past few years, the Department of Industrial Relations Division of Labor Standards and Enforcement (DSLE) has conducted an average of 9,000 investigations a year. This past September, the DSLE performed a statewide audit of 162 restaurants, 79 of which were issued citations totaling about $500,000 in fines for failure to maintain workers’ compensation [...]

On March 23, 2010, President Obama signed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) into law. The PPACA amended the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) to require employers with 50 or more employees to provide break time for non-exempt nursing mothers. Employers with less than 50 employees "are not subject to the FLSA [nursing] break time requirement if compliance with the provision would impose an undue hardship." Whether an undue hardship exists is a grey area that requires the employer to analyze [...]

The Department of Labor (DOL) recently issued guidance to employers regarding (1) employees who are entitled to take leave as a parent pursuant to the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA); and (2) implementing the break time requirement for nursing mothersas required under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA).

Who is a Parent (in loco parentis)?

In [...]