Archive for February, 2010

If you’re an employer in California, you know the difficulties associated with proving an employee meets an exemption from overtime. Last month, a California appellate court issued an opinion highlighting those difficulties.  The case is entitled Pellegrino v. Robert Half International, Inc. (2010) 181 Cal.App.4th 713 (out of the Fourth Appellate District).   In Pellegrino, six former employees of a temporary staffing agency, most of whom were “account executives” sued the agency for Labor Code violations,  primarily failure to pay overtime and failure to provide meal periods.  The agency defended the lawsuit by arguing that the employees fell under the Administrative Exemption from wage requirements.   The appellate court decided in favor of the employees.

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The Janssen Law Firm recently resolved a semi-truck/vehicle head-on collision case for the trucking insurer’s one million dollar policy limit.  The semi-truck driver employed by a trucking company out of Washington State fell asleep at the wheel while traveling Southbound on Interstate 5 North of Williams, California.  The big rig traversed the center median area and collided head-on with a young couple driving Northbound on Interstate 5.  The impact demolished the car our clients were in, and caused serious injuries to the driver, including an open left humerus fracture, splenic lacerations, chest pulmonary contusions, and left transverse fractures of cervical vertebral level 7 and thoracic vertebral level 1.  The driver’s open fractures required two separate bone graft surgeries, including the acute care surgery to implant hardware to reconstruct the limb.

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A Northern California carpenter’s union has filed a civil rights lawsuit against the city for allegedly violating their right to freedom of speech by citing a group of protesting carpenters and confiscating their protest banner under a city sign ordinance.  According to the lawsuit,  protesters had set up on a public curb in November in front of a Citation Homes Central sales office to protest unfair wages. Lawyers representing the union said that since the sign was political speech and not advertising, the citation is invalid and their rights to free speech were violated. “If we don’t stick up for our standards, it brings down everyone’s wages,” said Shaun Kinney, the veteran union carpenter named as a plaintiff in the suit. “You need to make as much as you can when you do work, to cover the times when you’re not working.”   Tracey Kaplan, San Jose Mercury News 01/24/2010.

If you have questions regarding rights of Humboldt County employees regarding prevailing wages or free speech issues please contact the Janssen Law Firm to meet with a Humboldt County Employment Lawyer.