PRACTITIONER BLOG
Read our analyses of developments in Impact Litigation and stay current on class action law
Tesla Trounced! Court Shreds Forced Arbitration Agreement & Reaffirms Workers’ Right to Fight for the Public Good Under FEHA in Racial Discrimination Case
For the first time, a California appellate court recently held that the state’s Fair Employment and Housing Act (FEHA) authorizes plaintiffs to seek public injunctions, and any agreement purporting to waive that agreement is invalid. This decision expressly reaffirms that workers can fight for the public good under FEHA because the public suffers when employer discrimination and harassment go unchecked. California law ensures that workers can seek to protect the public from discrimination and harassment through injunctive relief, even if other types of claims are subject to mandatory individual arbitration.
Supreme Court of California Approves Common Fund Fees
In a unanimous decision this morning, the California Supreme Court affirmed that attorneys’ fees in a class action may be calculated as a percentage of the common fund created by a settlement or judgment. Laffitte v. Robert Half Int’l, S222996 (August 11, 2016).
In determining the appropriate percentage, the trial court may -- but is not required to – conduct a lodestar cross-check. The trial court also has the discretion, in the first instance, to determine which fee calculation methodology to use (i.e. common fund or lodestar-multiplier) in any particular case. The decision has a useful discussion of the history and criticisms of each method.
New Teeth For California's 'Suitable Seating' Law
On April 4, the California Supreme Court unanimously decided Kilby v. CVS, which adopted a very worker-friendly construction of the state’s century-old “suitable seating law,” and will help ensure that, going forward, seating cases will proceed under California's Private Attorney General Act (PAGA) on a broad class-wide or representative action basis.
Since 1911, California law has guaranteed seats to employees “when the nature of the work reasonably permits the use of seats” (although until 1973, only women were protected).