Can the EEOC require employers to hire convicted criminals? Last April, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (“EEOC”) issued a policy guideline that calls into question the extent to which employers can incorporate a check of criminal records into a hiring decision without risking legal liability.[1] Read More
Ms. Jacoby is a senior associate in Orrick's San Francisco office and is a member of the Employment Group. Ms. Jacoby has substantial employment litigation experience, and has defended discrimination, harassment, whistleblowing and wrongful termination claims on behalf of public and private entities in a range of industries. As a second chair in an Alameda County superior court jury trial, she obtained a complete defense verdict in a wrongful termination lawsuit in October of 2011. She has argued dispositive motions in state and federal court as well as in arbitrations, and has achieved excellent client results in mediations before a variety of neutrals. She has extensive class action litigation experience, including expert witness depositions, and has achieved class certification denials relating to misclassification and meal and rest break claims in the financial industry. She has also drafted successful appellate briefs relating to individual and class claims.
In addition to litigation, Ms. Jacoby advises clients on wage-and-hour issues, conducts trainings and leads workplace investigations.
Before joining Orrick, Ms. Jacoby was an associate at Heller Ehrman LLP. Prior to law school, Ms. Jacoby worked as an associate analyst in the Law and Public Policy area of Abt Associates, and was a research assistant at the Federal Judicial Center's Research Division.
Kristen Jacoby
Posts by Kristen Jacoby
Required Extension of Statutory Pregnancy Leave as a Reasonable Accommodation
In a case of first impression, the Second Appellate District in California, recently took an expansive view of pregnancy leave rights for employees. Under California’s Pregnancy Disability Leave Law (“PDLL”), employees disabled by pregnancy are entitled to up to four months of job-protected leave. Under the California Family Rights Act (“CFRA”), employees may take leave up to 12 weeks for baby bonding. CFRA, however, does not include pregnancy disability as a “serious health condition,” which means that employees cannot begin to use their CFRA leave until after the child is born. Pregnant employees who need additional leave beyond the four months provided by the PDLL, but before their CFRA leave begins, are now explicitly protected by the Fair Employment and Housing Act (“FEHA”). Read More
California Court of Appeal Overturns $1.3 Million in Damages and Attorneys’ Fees against Lucasfilm for Failure to Give Instruction on Business Judgment
On December 10, 2012, in Veronese v. Lucasfilm Ltd., a California Court of Appeal overturned a Marin County jury’s verdict against Lucasfilm based on its finding that several errors in jury instructions prejudicially affected the verdict. Plaintiff had sued under the Fair Employment and Housing Act (“FEHA”) for pregnancy discrimination and related claims when she accepted, but did not start, in a temporary position at Lucasfilm. After eleven days of testimony and three days of deliberation, a jury awarded Veronese a total of $113,800 in damages and the trial court awarded Veronese $1,157,411 in attorneys’ fees. Lucasfilm challenged both the judgment and the fee award. Lucasfilm argued that the trial court judge erred in giving certain instructions proposed by Veronese, failing to give certain instructions proposed by Lucasfilm, and failing to instruct on certain issues submitted to the jury. Notably, this Court of Appeal decision appears to be the first California appellate decision reversing a jury verdict for an employee based on failure to give a business judgment instruction. Read More
Post-Brinker Class Certification Decisions – Where are they now?
Brinker continues to impact meal and rest period and off-the-clock cases as lower courts continue to grapple with the contours of its application. Several cases at the appellate level were remanded after the California Supreme Court’s Brinker decision, and those cases are now working their way through the lower courts. On our July 6, 2012 blog post, we identified three post-Brinker decisions denying class certification in meal period cases. Below is a brief summary of post-Brinker decisions issued since our last update. Read More
Harris v. Superior Court, No. B195121 (Cal. App. July 23, 2012)
Is it “here we go again” for Harris? In the latest round of the donnybrook that is the administrative exemption in California, a California Court of Appeal in Harris v. Super. Ct., No. B195121 (Cal. App. July 23, 2012), held that the plaintiffs, insurance claims adjusters, were—as a matter of law—not exempt from California’s overtime laws under California’s administrative exemption. After a trial court certified a partial class of California claims adjusters, but denied plaintiffs’ motion for summary judgment, the parties appealed the decision all the way to the California Supreme Court. Read More