PAGA After Viking River and California's 2024 Reform
Viking River promised to gut representative PAGA claims through arbitration. Three years and one legislative rewrite later, the individual…
Category
Employment Law
California employment law for plaintiff and worker-side practice — wage & hour, PAGA, FEHA discrimination, wrongful termination, and the regulatory shifts shaping 2026 litigation.
Predominance and Superiority: Reading California's Wage-and-Hour Certification Trend
Recent grants and denials in California wage-and-hour cases turn less on the merits than on whether the moving papers tie a common policy t…
Anti-SLAPP in Employment Cases: When the Motion Reaches, and When It Fails
The anti-SLAPP statute hands employment defendants a mandatory fee award and an automatic appellate stay—if their motion clears the first p…
Rest-Break and Meal-Period Premium Pay: Working the Regular-Rate Math
The one-hour premium under Labor Code section 226.7 sounds simple until you have to price it. Brinker set the trigger, Ferra fixed the rate…
Caregiver-Status Discrimination Under FEHA: The Plaintiff's Playbook
California has no freestanding "caregiver status" under FEHA, yet workers fired for tending sick parents or disabled children win. The clai…
The Interactive Process Under FEHA: What the Case Law Requires in 2026
The failure to engage in a good-faith interactive process is its own cause of action under FEHA — separate from the failure to accommodate.…
National Origin Discrimination: Language Policy Case Law Under FEHA
English-only rules and accent complaints look like management prerogatives until you read them against FEHA. California gives you a statute…
Labor Code 1102.5 After Lawson: A Whistleblower Claim Playbook
For years defense counsel litigated Labor Code 1102.5 retaliation claims under the McDonnell Douglas framework. The California Supreme Cour…
WARN Act and California Mini-WARN: Enforcing the Layoff-Notice Case
Federal WARN and California's mini-WARN look like the same statute until you read them side by side. The gaps between them — temporary layo…
California's Equal Pay Act and the 2026 Prima Facie Threshold
The California Equal Pay Act asks less of the plaintiff at the outset than most wage claims — and more of the employer once the burden shif…
Sexual Harassment Settlement Architecture After AB 749 and SB 331
Six years after AB 749 voided no-rehire clauses and four years after SB 331 expanded the Silenced No More Act, California sexual harassment…
AB 5 and the ABC Test in 2026: Misclassification Posture for Plaintiff PI
Six years into AB 5, the misclassification question is no longer novel — but it still decides who pays in PI cases. A working walkthrough o…