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Remy Kessler

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On March 29, 2019, a California Court of Appeal held that a trial court did not retain jurisdiction under Code of Civil Procedure section 664.6 to enforce a settlement agreement after dismissal of the underlying lawsuit because the parties did not comply with the strict requirements of section 664.6. At first blush, the decision in Mesa RHF Partners, L.P. v. City of Los Angeles (Mesa) may not seem significant; however, the court’s holding now requires litigants and their counsel to consider modifying the procedures they typically use to settle and dismiss cases, at least to the extent they want the trial court to retain jurisdiction to later enforce their settlement agreements if that becomes necessary.

Section 664.6 allows for parties to file a stipulation to allow a trial court to retain jurisdiction over a dismissed case to enforce a settlement agreement “in a writing signed by the parties.” In Mesa, the parties resolved a dispute and indicated in their settlement agreement that “[t]he Court shall retain jurisdiction pursuant to [section 664.6] to enforce the terms of the Settlement Agreement.” As is often done, counsel for the plaintiffs then signed and filed a request for dismissal on a printed court form. Counsel even went so far as to insert language on the form that stated the trial court would retain jurisdiction to enforce the settlement under section 664.6.Continue Reading California Court of Appeal cracks down on non-compliant requests for trial courts to retain jurisdiction to enforce settlement agreements

On May 11, 2016, President Obama signed the Defend Trade Secrets Act of 2016 (DTSA) into law, which takes effect immediately. Apart from adding fresh arrows into the quivers of companies that seek to prevent trade secret theft, it also creates new obligations for employers and opens the door for workers to disclose trade secrets under certain circumstances.

First, the new law provides immunity to persons from civil and criminal liability under both federal and state trade secret law for the disclosure of a trade secret that is (1) made in confidence to a federal, state, or local government official or to an attorney for the sole purpose of reporting or investigating a suspected violation of law; or (2) made in a filing under seal in “a lawsuit or other proceeding.” The statute also includes a provision that further specifies that an individual “who files a lawsuit for retaliation by an employer for reporting a suspected violation of law” may disclose the trade secret to his attorney and use the trade secret information in the court proceeding, if the individual files the documents containing the trade secret under seal, and does not disclose the trade secret except by court order.
Continue Reading New Immunity Given To Employees Who Disclose Employer Trade Secrets

Remy Kessler and Ian A. Wright have posted a new article on Forbes.com.

On August 12, 2014, the California court of appeal issued a sweeping decision that may spark a new wave of class action lawsuits against California employers.  In Cochran v. Schwan’s Home Service, Inc., the appellate court determined that employers must reimburse employees…

Most employers assume that if they successfully defeat a plaintiff’s motion for class certification in a wage and hour class action, the same class claims cannot be raised again in another case. On January 18, 2012, however, the California court of appeal in Bridgeford v. Pacific Health Corp, 2012 WL 130615, dashed that commonly held assumption.
Continue Reading California Court of Appeal Green Lights Repetitive Class Action Litigation

A series of wage and hour collective actions initially filed in New York and Pennsylvania have begun to swell across the country. Plaintiffs’ attorneys are targeting health care facilities over their alleged failure to comply with meal break rules. Specifically, such suits claim that employers have automatically deducted 30 to 60 minutes of time for employees’ meal periods, even if employees never took the breaks. The plaintiffs allege that by failing to provide unpaid meal periods free of interruptions from work, or by failing to fully compensate the employees for the time they were not relieved of duty, health care facilities have violated the Fair Labor Standards Act (“FLSA”) and other laws. Because employees can recover for violations that took place as many as three years before suit is filed, damages in these cases can be substantial. Employers may be liable for double the employees’ overtime rate of pay for the unpaid meal breaks that were improperly deducted. In addition, plaintiffs are entitled to recover their attorneys’ fees and costs, which often exceed the actual damages.

Not surprisingly, the Internet has become an effective tool for plaintiffs’ lawyers seeking to identify deep-pocket defendants. Some attorneys have even gone so far as to set up websites to provide information to employees about their investigations of health care employers. (See, e.g., hospitalovertime.com or overtimecases.com.) Such websites have become an easy way for a plaintiffs’ counsel to gather information about a particular health care employer’s practices, reach employees throughout the country, and publicize large settlements in wage and hour lawsuits.

Health care facilities throughout California have experienced a recent wave of wage and hour lawsuits. In 2008, at a time when registered nurses were in high demand and hospitals across the country were struggling financially, California completed implementation of landmark legislation passed almost a decade before, mandating minimum nurse-to-patient ratios. Not surprisingly, the shortage of nurses and other medical professionals has made it increasingly difficult for employers to comply with California laws requiring them to provide employees who work more than six hours with an uninterrupted 30-minute meal period. While many nurses acknowledge that the demands of their positions do not always permit an uninterrupted meal period, they uniformly object to not being compensated when they are unable to take the breaks to which they are legally entitled.

In addition to requiring payment of overtime when an employee works more than 40 hours per week, California law requires overtime pay when an employee works more than eight hours per day. Depending on the length of the shift, California employees who are denied meal periods may be entitled not only to overtime, but also to an additional hour of a “premium wage” for each missed meal period. California law permits employees to seek damages for meal period violations going back three years before suit is filed; but if the same allegations are brought under California’s Unfair Competition Law (Business & Professions Code Section 17200), the statute of limitations is four years.Continue Reading Plaintiffs’ Attorneys Targeting Health Care Facilities in Wage and Hour Lawsuits