Tag: California

Upcoming EmployStats CLE Seminar

EmployStats is hosting a CLE seminar in San Francisco, California on July 12, 2017 at the prestigious and historic Bently Reserve.  Our intensive Continuing Legal Education event will focus on California’s recent Fair Pay Act, and allegations of Fair Pay Act violations from both the experienced attorney and expert witness perspective.

Attendees we will hear from Lori Andrus, the attorney in the 4 million dollar Farmers Insurance lawsuit. There will also be a discussion by David Neumark, Ph.D., regarding his research into labor market discrimination.  Additionally, attorneys will hear directly from EmployStats Principal Economist Dr. Dwight Steward regarding his expert witness experience with discrimination allegations, as well as insight into the calculations and theories that make up loss of earnings analyses.

For more information on the upcoming CLE and registration, please visit our website at www.employstats.com/california-fair-page-act 

Recalculating a jury award in a California Med Mal case

The Medical Injury Compensation Reform Act (MICRA) of 1975 was a statute enacted by the California Legislature in August 1975.  One of the provisions of the statute was to allow doctors to make periodic payments of awards in Med Mal cases.
Accordingly, in California in those instances, the jury is required to award/come back with both un-discounted and present value discounted amounts. If the defendant chooses to make periodic payments, then the un-discounted award amounts come into play.
In a recent the jury came back with an award but only mentioned present value numbers and no future values.
The Court and the attorneys agreed that it was better to not send the jury back to give a future value award.  Instead they decided to have the economists figure out what the undiscounted future values are based on the present value numbers that the jury awarded.
So the following approach was offered.
Both economists used the ratio of the award to the present value numbers to future value numbers to back into the jury’s implicit undiscounted amount.  For example, if the award was about 25% more than what testified to, then the future value was increased by the same percentage.
So for example if  you two both used a 3% rate and calculated the present value of a loss over 10 years, the PV factor is 8.5302 (old school approach using tables!).  If you calculated a $50,000 loss and the opposing expert calculated a $75,000 loss that would give you present value amounts of $426,510 and $639,765 respectively.
If the jury came back with a present value number in between the two experts then this would be about $539,137,. The annual loss that the jury implicitly used to arrive at the $533,137 figure is about $62,500.  The annual loss number is right in the middle of the two experts.
Annual Loss PV factor PV of Award
Economist 1  $        50,000 8.5302  $        426,510
Economist 2  $        75,000 8.5302  $        639,765
Jury  $  533,137.50
Your 50% Guess (based on Jury award)  $    62,500.0 8.5302  $        533,138

Rest Periods, Hybrid Pay Systems, and the Minimum Wage in California

piecerate-downloadDwight Steward wrote:

Companies use many different systems to pay employees.  One such system is a hybrid pay system, where an employee earns an hourly rate as well as a wage for productive tasks.  For example, an employee who is paid $4 per hour and additionally $0.10 per box unloaded from a truck.  Recent cases discuss how companies that utilize a hybrid pay system should pay their employees a minimum wage for rest periods.

According to a May 8, 2013 decision in Bluford v. Safeway Stores, “rest periods must be separately compensated in a piece-rate system.  Rest periods are considered hours worked and must be compensated… A piece-rate compensation formula that does not compensate separately for rest periods does not comply with California minimum wage law.”    In other words, earnings for productive tasks cannot be used to subsidize rest breaks.

 

 

LA Raiders sued in Alameda County for off-the-clock work and other alleged wage and hour violations

Numerous news sources reported on the wage and hour lawsuit filed by one LA Raider cheerleader against the team for allegedly violating California state wage and hour laws.

Read the complaint here.

KQED (Northern area Public Radio) reports:

A member of the Oakland Raiderettes cheerleading squad sued the football team in Alameda County Superior Court on Wednesday, alleging that the club is in “flagrant violation” of an array of California wage and employment laws.

[The lawsuit]  claims the Oakland Raiders club doesn’t pay the cheerleaders for all the time they spend working, withholds pay until the end of the season, and forces them to pay some of their own business expenses.

 

The lawsuit seeks to be certified as a class action on behalf of all present and former Raiderettes who cheered for the team since 2010.

[according to the complaint] the cheerleaders are paid only $1,250 per season, which amounts to less than $5 per hour for the time they spend rehearsing, performing and making required appearances at charity events.

 

 

Short shifts under a alternative workweek schedule in California

In California, employees and employers may adopt an alternative workweek schedule or AWS.   An AWS is any regularly scheduled workweek requiring an employee to work more than eight hours in a 24-hour period.

If employees who are under a AWS receive few than the number of scheduled hours then a short shift has occurred.  For short shifts, employees are paid overtime for hours worked in excess of 8 and double time for hours in excess of 12.  From

For all Orders except Order 16, if the employer requires an employee to work fewer hours than those that are regularly scheduled, the employer must pay the employee overtime at the rate of one and one-half times the employee’s regular rate of pay for all hours worked in excess of eight hours, and, of course, double the employee’s regular rate of pay for all hours worked in excess of 12 hours for the day the employee is required to work the reduced hours.

For Order 16 only, an employee who works longer than eight hours but no more than 10 hours in a workday pursuant to an alternative workweek schedule, must be paid an overtime rate of not less than one and one-half times his or her regular rate of pay for any work in excess of the regularly scheduled hours established by the agreement.

Olgetree Deakins attorneys discuss new California wage and hour legislation

Betsy Johnson, Office Managing shareholder in the Los Angeles Office of Ogletree Deakins discusses new California wage and hour and employment legislation in a multi-part series.

AB 10:  State Minimum Wage Increase: AB 10 amends section 1182.12 of the Labor Code to increase the minimum wage to $9 per hour as of July 1, 2014 and to $10 per hour as of January 1, 2016.

AB 241:  Domestic Worker Bill of Rights: B 241 adds section 1450 to the Labor Code and requires that individuals in household occupations (such as nannies, housekeepers, and individuals providing care for the elderly or disabled within a household) be paid overtime compensation at a rate of 1.5 times their regular rate for hours worked in excess of 9 hours per day or 45 hours per week. 

AB 442:  Liquidated Damages for Unpaid Wages: 

SB 435:  Recovery Periods: SB 435 extends requirement to pay an additional hour of pay to situations in which employers fail to provide any “recovery” periods required by Division of Occupational Safety and Health (DOSH also known as Cal/OSHA) regulations. A “recovery” period is a cool down period afforded to employees who work outside to prevent heat illness.