The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) has announced the expansion of its EEOC Public Portal to allow federal employees and applicants to file and manage requests for hearings and appeals of their federal equal employment opportunity (EEO) complaints. The EEOC Public Portal allows federal employees and applicants (complainants) to create an account in order to submit an online request for a hearing or to file an appeal of their discrimination complaint. The P

In July of 2019, the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing (DFEH) reached a settlement in an employment disability discrimination case involving a retail store clerk who alleged she was subjected to discrimination, denied a good-faith interactive process and reasonable accommodation, and retaliated against after she informed her employer about her disability and need for accommodation. The employee filed a complaint with DFEH in 2018 alleging that her employer

This month, the California Supreme held that a group of employees covered by a collective bargaining agreement failed to state a viable claim for payment for the time they spent on pre- and post-work activities since they expressly agreed, by way of the collective bargaining process, to a specific amount of compensation on the time spent on such activities, and there is no allegation that the state failed to pay the agreed-upon amount; the employees who were not covered by th

The California Court of Appeals, Third District, has held that California Labor Code § 2802 does not require an employer to reimburse its employees for the cost of slip-resistant shoes as necessary expenditures incurred by the employees in direct consequence of the discharge of their duties. (Townley v. BJ’s Restaurants, publication ordered July 8, 2019, 2019 S.O.S. 3245.) In short, the appellate court concluded that BJ’s (the employer) is not required, as a matter of law, t

The Unites States Court of Appeal for the Ninth Circuit has held that the federal de minimis doctrine—which precludes recovery for otherwise compensable amounts of time that are small, irregular, or administratively difficult to record—does not apply to wage and hour claims brought under the California Labor Code. (Rodriguez v. Nike Retail Services, Inc. - filed June 28, 2019 - 2019 S.O.S. 17-16866.) Specifically, the Ninth Circuit reversed the district court’s summary judgme