Lauren Teukolsky will speak at the UCLA Law Women LEAD Leadership Summit on Friday, September 27th. UCLA Law Women LEAD is an inclusive, intersectional community of UCLA Law women who aid each other in life and career. The group is hosting the Leadership Summit’s tenth anniversary which brings UCLA Law professors, alumni, and students from around the world to discuss important topics in the law. Ms. Teukolsky will speak on a panel discussing how to assess, litigate, and triumph in PAGA litigation after AB 2288 and SB 92. She will speak alongside Emily Gould Sullivan, Vice President of Legal at Ross Stores, Inc., and Tritia Murata, Partner at David Wright Termaine LLP.
 
Ms. Teukolsky has previously discussed the impact of these bills on PAGA litigation in a Bloomberg Law article . She is a frequent speaker on employment law topics. Last September, Ms. Teukolsky was selected to moderate a session at CELA’s (California Employment Lawyer Association) 36th Annual Employment Law Conference on individual wage-and-hour arbitrations. She has spoken a number of times on PAGA, including for the California Lawyers Association, CELA, the Alameda County Bar Association and Beverly Hills Bar Association. Her commentary on the effects of the California Supreme Court decision Adolph v. Uber on PAGA claims was also featured in articles by Bloomberg Law and Law.com.
 
Ms. Teukolsky’s panel starts at 1:25 pm PT at UCLA’s Schoenberg Hall. To register for the Leadership Summit, click here. If you believe you’ve been treated unlawfully in the workplace and want to get in touch with our office, click here.

​Lauren Teukolsky was recently quoted in a Bloomberg Law article about the new PAGA reform package passed by the California Legislature in early July 2024. The package represents a compromise between businesses and labor groups that aims to strengthen worker protections while allowing employers to cure violations and face lower penalties. The reformed law, decades-long in the making, avoids a contentious ballot measure that would have repealed PAGA entirely if passed.

Several measures of the reform package benefit workers.  If a PAGA plaintiff recovers penalties for Labor Code violations, aggrieved employees get to keep 35% of the penalties, up from 25% under the previous law.  As before, the remainder of penalties are paid to the State.  Workers are also authorized to seek injunctive relief (i.e., a court order to require an employer to stop an unlawful practice), a remedy not authorized by the previous law. 

Other measures favor employers. Subject to limited exceptions, employees are now permitted to seek penalties only for Labor Code violations they have actually suffered.  Previously, an employee who suffered one type of violation could file a PAGA suit on behalf of other employees for any violation of the Labor Code.

A crucial aspect of the PAGA reform package is the early evaluation conference, theoretically aimed at reducing litigation length and costs. Now, large employers with more than 100 employees can request an early evaluation conference which halts ongoing litigation until a neutral third party assess the plaintiff’s claims, the company’s efforts to comply with the Labor Code, and plans to cure violations. Smaller employers may access a similar process through the Labor and Workforce Development Agency.  If employers can demonstrate they have cured the violations, PAGA penalties may be capped.

PAGA practitioners and courts will need to grapple with setting up early evaluation conferences in the months to come.  The reform package does not dictate how courts are supposed to implement the early evaluation program, leading PAGA practitioners like Ms. Teukolsky to wonder how courts with limited resources will implement such programs, especially in the face of recent budget cuts that have slashed court services. 

The Bloomberg article quoted Ms. Teukolsky saying,  “While courts that frequently handle PAGA lawsuits, like Los Angeles Superior Court, probably will establish high functioning evaluation programs, it’s less clear what will happen with smaller courts that don’t see as much of that kind of litigation.”   

Ms. Teukolsky has represented workers for over two decades and her commentary on the latest developments in employment law is regularly featured by major publications such as Bloomberg Law, Law360, Law.com, and the Los Angeles Times.

To read the article in its entirety, click here. If you believe you’ve been treated unlawfully in the workplace and want to get in touch with our office, click here.

​Last week, the United States Senate passed the Ending Forced Arbitration of Sexual Assault and Sexual Harassment Act, signaling a huge victory for victims of sexual assault and harassment across the country. The law prevents employers from using forced arbitration clauses to protect themselves from lawsuits alleging sexual assault and harassment. The bill invalidates forced arbitration clauses in “any dispute or claim that arises or accrues” after the date it is signed into law.  This appears to mean that it applies to existing agreements that an employee has already signed, but does not revive sexual assault or harassment cases that have already been arbitrated.

Employers often include forced arbitration clauses in their employees’ employment contracts to ensure that employees’ claims of sexual assault or harassment are resolved through private arbitration, rather than normal court. Many employers do this because the employees tend to fare worse in private arbitration than they do in court. According to a paper published by the Economic Policy Institute, employees in private arbitration win only about a fifth of the time (21.4 percent), whereas employees in federal court win over one-third (36.4 percent) of the time. Employees also tend to be awarded less in damages in mandatory arbitration than in federal courts.

The new bill, H.R. 4445, has not been signed into law yet, but has now been passed by both chambers of Congress with strong bipartisan support. President Biden has indicated support for the bill in the past and is expected to sign it into law soon.
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If you believe you have faced sexual assault or harassment at work, or have questions about arbitration, contact Teukolsky Law today for a free consultation.

Whistleblowers whose employers retaliate against them received some good news recently from the California Supreme Court.  On January 7, 2022, the Court handed down a decision in Lawson v. PPG Architectural Finishes, Inc., holding that whistleblowers may prove their claims by a “preponderance of the evidence,” and that employers can defeat such claims only by showing “by clear and convincing evidence” that they would have taken the same adverse action even if the employee had not engaged in whistleblowing.  A “preponderance of the evidence” standard is relatively low – it simply means that it was more likely than not that the employer engaged in unlawful retaliation.  By contrast, the “clear and convincing evidence” standard is far higher, meaning that the employer will have a difficult time proving its defense than the employee will have in proving that retaliation occurred.

The Court rejected the employer’s argument that whisteblower claims should be evaluated using a more stringent test that is typically used in federal lawsuits.

This victory for whistleblowers comes on the heels of the California Legislature’s decision in 2021 to permit whistleblowers who prevail on their claims to recover their attorneys’ fees from a losing employer.  Previously, prevailing whistleblowers had to bear their own attorneys’ fees.

Associate Justice Leondra Kruger, who is rumored to be a contender for a U.S. Supreme Court seat after Justice Stephen Breyer announced he will retire, authored the unanimous decision.

Jeffrey Thornton, a Black job applicant in San Diego, has filed the first discrimination lawsuit in California invoking the CROWN Act, a relatively new California law that went into effect in January 2020.  CROWN (Create a Respectful and Open Workplace for Natural Hair) prohibits companies and public schools from using grooming policies targeting Black people’s natural hairstyles, including cornrows, dreadlocks, and twists.

In late November 2021, Thornton sued an event production company called Encore Global, which has an office in San Diego, alleging that Encore violated the CROWN Act when they asked him to cut his dreadlocks as a condition of employment.  Thornton says Encore told him he would need to cut his dreadlocks to comply with the company’s standards. The lawsuit alleges that Encore required Thornton to cut his hair so that it was off his ears, eyes and shoulders, and that he would not be in compliance by simply tying back his hair.

Since California passed the first CROWN Act in 2019, twelve more states have passed similar legislation. While federal courts generally take the stance that afros are a racial trait protected by anti-discrimination laws, they don’t take the same position toward other natural Black hairstyles. That is why the CROWN Act offers unique and groundbreaking protection for California employees. California state senator Holly Mitchell, who wears locs, originally introduced the CROWN Act after being inspired by a case involving a Black woman in Alabama who lost her job at a call center after refusing to cut her dreadlocks.

Encore has stated since the filing of the lawsuit, “We regret any miscommunication with Mr. Thornton regarding our standard grooming policies — which he appears to fully meet and we have made him an offer of employment.”  Thornton seeks an injunction prohibiting Encore from implementing a grooming or personal appearance policy that violates the CROWN Act or is otherwise discriminatory against people of color.

If you believe you have faced racial discrimination at work, contact Teukolsky Law today for a free consultation. 

On October 27, the Washington Post reported that U.S. employers closed nearly 14,000 private arbitration cases in 2020, a 17 percent increase from 2019. The Post wrote about findings from a report by the American Association for Justice.

“Critics say the system, in which cases are decided by private arbitrators, keeps employment disputes out of the public eye and fails to hold corporations accountable,” the Post wrote. Mandatory arbitration agreements are increasingly common, both as a condition of employment and for consumers signing up for products and services.

This week, the House Judiciary Committee is marking up the Forced Arbitration Injustice Repeal (FAIR) Act, which would ban mandatory arbitration. According to a 2018 report from the Economic Policy Institute, arbitration disproportionately affects low-wage workers and the retail industry; arbitration typically favors companies while shielding them from accountability for working conditions. According to the new report, employees were awarded money in just 1.6 percent of arbitrations in 2020. Decisions in arbitrations are final and cannot be appealed.

California has moved to prohibit mandatory arbitration for employees, but nationwide, just three states, including California, require arbitration companies to self-report certain data, like claim types and the prevailing party in each case.

Lauren Teukolsky is one of the leading experts in California on arbitration agreements.  She is a frequent speaker at statewide conferences on the topic of arbitration, including for the California Employment Lawyers Association and the California Lawyers Association (formerly State Bar).  If you have questions about whether an arbitration agreement is enforceable, contact us today for a consultation.

On September 10, 2020, Governor Gavin Newsom signed AB 1867. Passage of the bill means that millions of Californians will now be eligible for up to 80 hours of supplemental paid sick leave during COVID-19. While many workers were already given paid sick leave under the federal FFCRA (Families First Coronavirus Response Act), this bill expands paid sick leave to employees working for private employers with more than 500 U.S.-based workers, and all health care providers and emergency response workers not covered under FFCRA. The bill also codifies existing paid sick leave provisions for food service workers. 

To qualify for the expanded leave, the employee must perform work outside their home or residence and satisfy one of the following conditions: 1) be advised by a medical provider to quarantine due to coronavirus-related concerns; 2) due to COVID-19 concerns, not be permitted to work; or 3) be under a federal, state, or local isolation or quarantine order. The legislation will be enforced through the Labor Commissioner’s office; there is no private right of action to sue the employer directly in court.

New regulations such as these are essential for containing the spread of the coronavirus because they create a pathway for workers to stay home and not risk their health or their income. Keeping sick workers at home also stops the spread of COVID-19 to the general public. We are grateful to live in California, which was recently ranked #1 by Oxfam in terms of worker protections in a study entitled, "Best States to Work During COVID-19." Hopefully, California will continue to lead the way in worker’s rights legislation during the pandemic.

If you believe that your employer has failed to provide you with paid sick leave or you have any questions about your rights during the COVID-19 crisis, contact Teukolsky Law today for a free consultation.