For the past couple of months, the hope existed that litigation pending in a Los Angeles Superior Court would ultimately be dismissed after the California Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (OEHHA) recommended coffee retailers be exempted from California Proposition 65 requirements to include a cancer warning on coffee. Public comments included an endorsement of…
Read More »The Coalition of Franchisee Associations (CFA) inaugural legal symposium will be held in a couple of weeks on Wednesday, October 24 at the Hyatt Regency McCormick Place. Although the CFA room block is now closed, rooms may still be available. Attendees will hear from top franchisee attorneys Robert Zarco with Zarco, Einhorn, Salkowski & Brito,…
Read More »Through the veil of the Fight for $15 movement that it has bankrolled, SEIU demanded that two of the republican members of the National Labor Relations Board recuse themselves this week from decisions involving a pending settlement of a major McDonald’s case. The settlement was rejected by an NLRB administrative law judge last month and…
Read More »Speaking of the NLRB and decisions by Administrative Law Judges (ALJs), last week the Board unanimously ruled that its process for appointing administrative law judges falls in line with a recent Supreme Court decision on the subject. In Lucia v. SEC , SCOTUS found that the process used by the Security and Exchange Commission for…
Read More »The US Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has upheld a lower court ruling in Rodriguez v Taco Bell Corp. that requiring employees to eat employer-discounted meals in the restaurant violates neither the US Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) or California Employment Law. Taco Bell offers its employees discounted meals for their required 30-minute meal breaks…
Read More »A couple of important dates are coming up relative to employer responsibilities regarding sexual harassment in New York over the next 2 months. First off in New York City, the Stop Sexual Harassment Act, a series of bills signed into law by Mayor de Blasio on May 9, requires all employers beginning on September 6,…
Read More »It can’t even be called a “drive-by” lawsuit, but metaphorically speaking, that is the perfect description. A lawsuit against Dunkin’ has been revived and remanded by the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals. Dennis Haynes v. Dunkin’ Donuts, LLC stems from allegations by a Haynes, a blind Florida man that he was being discriminated against in…
Read More »The US 5th Circuit Court of Appeals has upheld an NLRB ruling that allowed QSR employees to wear pro-union pins and buttons on company uniforms during working hours. The case stems from an In-N-Out Burger policy that prohibited employees from wearing any pins or buttons on their work uniforms. Two employees of an In-N-Out store…
Read More »In a 4-2 decision, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court upheld the validity of the Philadelphia soda tax, rejecting a major challenge brought by the beverage and food merchant industries. Philadelphia passed the new tax back in 2016 assessing distributors and dealers 1.5 cents per ounce on sugary beverages. The city cleverly drafted the tax to apply…
Read More »In a surprising ruling on Wednesday, the US 11th Circuit Court of Appeals restored a discrimination challenge brought against the city of Birmingham Alabama by African-American fast-food workers. The suit, initially filed in 2016, alleged that the state’s mostly white legislature violated the civil rights of black workers by nullifying a new minimum wage in…
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