California Legal News Articles & Interviews

San Francisco, CA Tesla and former Black sub-contractor Owen Diaz have finally settled a California labor racial harassment lawsuit. The settlement ends a long-running battle over how much Tesla would pay Diaz after getting one of the largest awards in a U.S. employment discrimination case overturned.

Santa Clara, CA In a recent California Supreme Court ruling, a worker’s time spent on an employer’s premises undergoing security checks is compensable as hours worked, but time spent driving from the security gate to the parking lot does not qualify as “hours worked”. This California labor law decision emphasizes that the extent of employer control is what mainly defines the classification of "hours worked."

San Francisco, CA  Phillips 66 Co. and refinery workers duked it out before a California federal judge on March 14 over meal-break and time-rounding policies. Workers claims that Phillips automatically deducted 30-minute break periods from hundreds of workers' pay add up to $46.5 million in violation of California labor law.

Los Angeles, CA Disney Hotels is facing yet another class action lawsuit claiming California labor law violations. This time, maintenance workers claim they are paid less than fast food workers. You’d think that Disney could afford to either supply its maintenance crews with tools or pay them the proper hourly rate, considering that its hotel rooms begin at $500 and some go for more than $800 per night, depending upon the location. That would likely be more cost-effective than a class-action lawsuit. Clearly, Disney is not the happiest place on earth for everyone.

San Francisco, CA Qwick, a gig economy online staffing company for hotel and restaurant workers, is required to pay its misclassified California workers $1.5 million in restitution and convert all workers to employees. This agreement settles a misclassification lawsuit brought by the City Attorney of San Francisco and it significantly reclassifies thousands of workers – permanently. Misclassified as independent contractors, workers will now be entitled to employee rights and benefits.

Lincoln, NE Plaintiffs in a wage-fixing class-action lawsuit asked a judge in Colorado federal court to preliminarily approve deals with two meat processors. In early March, Brazil’s JBS, the world’s largest beef producer, agreed to pay $55 million and Arkansas-based Tyson will pay $72.25 million to settle a complaint involving several companies that allegedly participated in a nationwide scheme to fix and depress wages for meat plant workers.

Los Angeles, CA Glass House Brands Inc. was slapped with a proposed class action lawsuit last month, alleging California labor law violations. A former worker accuses the major California marijuana producer of engaging in a systematic pattern of wage violations, including unpaid overtime and unrealistic workloads.

San Francisco, CA Two former X Corp. workers in February 2024 implored a California federal court to go ahead with their proposed class action labor lawsuit alleging gender discrimination. The plaintiffs said X's argument that they failed to allege that X exhibited a pattern of practice of discriminatory behavior should be rejected because they now have enough detail, and evidence indicating Musk’s own biases, to survive the company's motion to dismiss.

San Diego, CA If your employer has taken advantage of you, consider speaking to an experienced wage and hour attorney. Nathan Kased’s clients are diverse: from blue collar workers who haven’t been properly paid to managers and sales people misclassified as independent contractors. “Overtime is the biggest issue, and wrongful termination is a close second,” says Kased.

Riverside County, CA West Coast Drywall & Co is doing it again: underpaying its piece-rate field employees and instructing them to underreport their hours. The California drywall company settled a lawsuit for the same allegations in 2017, but just two years after the settlement, the company repeated the same California labor law violations. According to this lawsuit filed by Attorney General Rob Bonta, since August 2019 the company has shorted about 7,000 workers by failing to pay wages owed, overtime, and more.