Facebook Contesting Notice of Collective Action to Employees Who Signed Arbitration Agreement Waivers

In another notable case reported by the National Law Review, Bigger v. Facebook in the US District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, collective action was certified based on the Fair Labor Standards Act. The case includes complaints that Facebook did not properly pay overtime to specific employee groups. ...

False Claims Act Jury?

Jury trials are required for federal false claims cases unless both the plaintiff and defendant agree to proceed without a jury. An unanswered question is whether a qui tam plaintiff, where the government has intervened, may object to an agreement between the government and the defendant to waive a jury. One exception ...

Age Discrimination Lawsuits Upsurge against PWC and Fire Departments in San Francisco and Riverside County, Respectively

Our San Francisco and Riverside County employment attorneys report a spike in age discrimination lawsuits this week.  One was filed this week by a Certified Public Accountant by the name of Steve Rabin against the internationally renowned consulting and accounting firm PriceWaterhouseCoopers (Rabin v. PricewaterhouseC...

Recent Cases in Employee Privacy Rights, Workplace Arrangements, and Overtime

Three cases from this week showed how employee privacy, workplace arrangements, and overtime remain hot topics in the California employment law landscape. The first case is a settlement by Sony Pictures where it agreed to pay at least $2 million dollars and up to $4.5 million to a proposed class of former and curren...

Federal Court: Uber Drivers Are Employees, Not Independent Contractors

After months of speculation, a federal court in Northern California held that drivers for Uber are employees and not independent contractors due to Uber's control over the drivers' schedules, routes, pay, and training. The court was considering whether to certify a class action of thousands of drivers who had signe...

Bank of America unit will pay $36 million to settle appraiser class action

Bank of America Corp's appraisal unit, Landsafe Appraisal Services, Inc. has agreed to pay $36 million to settle a class action alleging it misclassified residential real estate appraisers as exempt from getting paid overtime. According to Plaintiffs' attorneys, each of the 365 class members will recover about $100,000...