"Do this, don't do that, can't you read the rules . . ."*

Of course, the mega-topic this week was the U.S. Department of Labor's Final Rule on white-collar exemptions to the overtime provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act. Ellen Kearns, co-chair of our Wage and Hour Practice Group, wrote a great Client Bulletin on the Rule, taking a complex subject and explaining it in a pithy and ...

BREAKING NEWS:  CALIFORNIA FALLS INTO THE SEA!

Well, not exactly.  But some natural phenomena occur only once or twice in a lifetime—like Halley’s Comet, or the turn of the Millennium, or the Mets winning the pennant.  Another one happened today:  the FLSA has become more protective or workers than California law, which is ordinarily the nation’s statistical outlier in the ...

Starting in January, California has rolled out Equal Pay Legislation 2.0—the new generation in equal pay legislation. It has become the first jurisdiction to adopt a true "comparable worth" standard for pay equity.

Typically states follow the federal Equal Pay Act to require that employers pay men and woman alike for “equal work” which requires “equal skill, effort or ...

No one is immune from wage-hour payouts. Not even a Human Resources consultant.

California HR consulting firm TriNet has reportedly agreed to pay approximately $1 million in overtime and liquidated damages to 267 employees. The payment is in settlement of a wage-hour investigation conducted by the San Francisco office of the U.S. Department of Labor.

According to the DOL ...

NOTE FROM ROBIN: Welcome to our Los Angeles-Century City Office, and to Steve Katz, who will be posting from time to time about the most peculiar of California’s employment laws.

California's wage orders, which regulate working conditions for most industries and occupations, require that "[a]ll working employees shall be provided with suitable seats when the nature of the work ...

Remember this guy?

Former sports columnist T.J. Simers sued the Los Angeles Times for age and disability discrimination, among other things, when he quit his job in 2013. The Times had allegedly demoted him (although with no cut in his salary in excess of $200,000 a year) when he was 63 years old and after he'd allegedly suffered a mini-stroke.

We had limited news reports this far east, but ...

Readers have been clamoring for my take on the alcoholism-discrimination lawsuit filed by Steve Sarkisian against the University of Southern California.

Actually, I got one email from a reader, who had a better take on the whole situation than I do.

But who cares! I still think it's a great topic, and a case worth following!

Here's the deal, as I understand it:

Mr. Sarkisian took ...

We have not one, but two new high-profile employment lawsuits that are worth following long-term: Former head football coach Steve Sarkisian's alcoholism-discrimination lawsuit against the University of Southern California, and the wrongful termination lawsuit filed against the Michigan House of Representatives by former aides to adulterous former legislators Todd ...

Wednesday night the Los Angeles jury hearing the age and disability discrimination case of former sports columnist T.J. Simers came back with a verdict in his favor of $7.1 million, consisting of retro and future lost income, and retro and future pain and suffering. (The jury did not award punitive damages.)

A spokesperson for the Los Angeles ...

As I always say, "What do I know?"

Based on the information I had, I felt that this should have been a summary judgment case for the Los Angeles Times. But the jury in Los Angeles did not agree. Law360 (and some of our readers - thank you!) reports that the jury came back with a verdict for former sports columnist T.J. Simers in his age and disability discrimination case of $7.2 million. Mr ...