The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Standard Fire Insurance Co. v. Knowles confirms that a plaintiff cannot avoid federal jurisdiction under the Class Action Fairness Act (“CAFA”) by stipulating that the class will seek less than CAFA’s $5 million amount in controversy threshold. Read More
Sara Dionne, a senior associate in Orrick's Sacramento office, is a member of the Employment Law Group. Her practice focuses on employment litigation and counseling. Ms. Dionne has experience with a variety of matters, including litigating wage-and-hour class actions, counseling and conducting audits concerning wage-and-hour issues and working on trade secret, employee leave, wrongful termination, harassment and discrimination matters. She has presented on a number of employment law topics, such as employee leave, wage-and-hour law and arbitration.
Sara Dionne
Posts by Sara E. Dionne
Second Circuit Holds No Substantive Right To Bring A Pattern-Or-Practice Title VII Claim
Reversing a denial of a motion to compel arbitration in Parisi et al. v. Goldman, Sachs & Co. et al., the Second Circuit held that a plaintiff does not have a substantive right to bring a pattern and practice claim under Title VII. The plaintiff at issue in Parisi alleged gender discrimination under Title VII, seeking to bring her claims on behalf of herself and a putative class of female Goldman Sachs employees. During her employment, the plaintiff signed a broad arbitration agreement, which covered her discrimination claims and did not contain a provision providing for class-wide arbitration. Read More
Seventh Circuit Holds That FLSA and Rule 23 Certification Standards Are the Same and Affirms Denial of Certification Based on Lack of Trial Plan
A recent opinion by the Seventh Circuit holds that the standard for certifying a collective action under the FLSA is the same as the standard applied to a class action under Rule 23. In Espenscheid v. DirectSat USA, LLC, No. 12-1943 (7th Cir. Feb. 4, 2013), the court considered decertification by a Western District of Wisconsin District Court of more than 2,000 satellite technicians in an action alleging technicians did not receive overtime and were not compensated for certain hours. In analyzing the standard to apply in evaluating the decertification decision, the court contrasted the opt-in procedure of FLSA collective actions with the opt-out procedure of Rule 23 actions, as well as noted that the FLSA lacks “the kind of detailed procedural provisions found in Rule 23” that set forth the standard for certification. Read More
See’s Candy Shops, Inc. v. Superior Court: California Appellate Court Confirms Application of Federal Rounding Standards in California
Many employers systematically round employee time punches to the nearest tenth of an hour. For example, if an employee clocks in at 9:58 a.m., the time is rounded up to 10:00 a.m.; and likewise if she clocks in at 10:02 a.m., her time is rounded down to 10:00 a.m. Under federal law, rounding policies are lawful if they are neutrally applied and do not systematically under compensate employees. While this standard was approved by the California Division of Labor Standards and Enforcement, until recently, no California court or statute specifically addressed the issue.
However, on October 29, 2012, the California Court of Appeal for the Fourth Appellate District in See’s Candy Shops, Inc. v. Superior Court confirmed that the neutral rounding standard adopted by federal law and the Department of Labor Standards and Enforcement is appropriate under California law. Thus, under See’s Candy, California employers may maintain lawful rounding policies if the rounding does not consistently result in a failure to pay employees for time worked. An example of a potentially unlawful rounding policy is one in which the employer always rounds time down.
Also of note, in approving the federal rounding standard, the See’s Candy opinion rejected the plaintiff’s reliance on California Labor Code section 204. Specifically, the court emphasized that Section 204 is solely a timing requirement as to when wages must be paid, and does not create any substantive right to wages.
You can read the decision here.
U.S. Supreme Court To Decide Whether Class Action Plaintiffs Can Use Stipulations To Avoid Jurisdiction Under The Class Action Fairness Act
The United States Supreme Court recently granted certiorari to review whether class action plaintiffs can avoid federal court jurisdiction under the Class Action Fairness Act (“CAFA”) by stipulating that their damages do not exceed the federal jurisdictional prerequisite. This issue is particularly significant to employers because they frequently rely on the CAFA to remove cases to federal court when hit with wage-and-hour and other employment class action lawsuits. The CAFA generally permits class action defendants to remove cases with minimal diversity to federal court where the amount in controversy exceeds $5 million. Read More
The NLRB Finds That Social Media Policy Violates The National Labor Relations Act
In its first ruling on an employer’s social media policy, the National Labor Relations Board found that Costco Wholesale Corporation’s social media policy in its employee handbook violated the National Labor Relations Act. Among the policy provisions reviewed, the Board analyzed Costco’s policy prohibiting employees from posting electronically statements that damage the company or any person’s reputation.
In its September 7, 2012 opinion, the Board stated that the “appropriate inquiry” is whether the policy would “reasonably tend to chill employees in their exercise of their Section 7 rights[,]” which provides employees with the right to engage in concerted activity. While the Board acknowledged that Costco’s policy did not explicitly reference Section 7 activity, the Board did find that the policy’s broad prohibition on statements “clearly encompasses concerted communications protesting [Costco’s] treatment of its employees.” The Board specifically noted that there was nothing in Costco’s policy that even suggested the exclusion of protected communications. Accordingly, the Board concluded that Costco’s policy had a reasonable tendency to inhibit employees’ protected activity and thus violated the National Labor Relations Act.
SCOTUS Will Decide Whether Rule 68 Offers Moot FLSA Collective Actions
The U.S. Supreme Court granted cert on June 25, 2012 in Genesis Healthcare Corp. v. Symczyk to resolve a federal circuit split on whether an FLSA collective action is mooted when the lone plaintiff receives from defendants an offer of judgment under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 68 that satisfies the plaintiff’s claims. Under Rule 68, a defendant may offer judgment against it on specified terms. If the offer is accepted, judgment is entered on the terms offered. If the offer is not accepted, plaintiff is liable for post-offer costs if the plaintiff fails to ultimately obtain a judgment more favorable than the offer. Read More
Ninth Circuit Holds Statistical Evidence May Establish Prima Facie Claim of Disparate Treatment Without Accounting for Defendant’s Legitimate, Non-Discriminatory Reasons for Adverse Action
In Schechner v. KPIX-TV, No. 11–15294, 2012 WL 1922088 (9th Cir. May 29, 2012), the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals held that a plaintiff may establish a prima facie case of disparate treatment age discrimination using statistical evidence, even where that evidence does not account for a defendant’s legitimate non-discriminatory reasons for the adverse employment action. However, the court found the plaintiffs’ statistical evidence insufficient to demonstrate that the defendant’s proffered reasons for the adverse employment action were pretextual. Read More
Employer Requests for Social Media Passwords Under Scrutiny
Following a growing trend among states, Ohio recently introduced legislation to bar employers from requiring current or prospective employees to provide access to their private social media accounts, such as Facebook and Twitter. Although to date Maryland is the only state with a law on the books prohibiting employers from requiring or requesting access to a current or prospective employee’s private social media accounts (Maryland’s law does not go into effect until October 1, 2012), approximately a dozen other states are considering similar legislation, including California, Delaware, Illinois and New York. Click here for a list of the state bills. Read More