Driverless trucks will take some getting used to, but that does not make them the Halloween demon that the Teamsters make them out to be. In fact, few industries stand to gain as much from the implementation of driverless vehicle technology as freight and transportation, and specifically trucking: a $767 billion a year business that will benefit from automation by using less fuel and man­-hours while hastening deliveries.

The Scali Law Firm is pleased to announce the expansion of its employment defense litigation group with the addition of associate attorney, Gregory B. Wilbur. Greg joins the firm’s Los Angeles Office’s Litigation and Employment practice groups and has extensive experience in class action wage and hour employment litigation. He is well versed in the California Labor Code, the regulations and agency authority interpreting it, and the Private Attorneys General Act (PAGA) and is adept at evaluating exposure to damages and penalties from wage-and-hour class action lawsuits.

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) recently issued a press release answering dealers’ questions concerning the revised Used Motor Vehicle Trade Regulation Rule, also known as the Used Car Rule. The Used Car Rule requires dealers to display the Buyer’s Guide on all used cars, which contains warranty information.

Commercial vehicle history reports like Carfax™ and Autocheck™ have grown in popularity in the last several years and are commonly given to customers who purchase used vehicles at dealerships. These reports, however, are also a source of problems for dealers. In fact, consumer attorneys attempt to admit vehicle history reports and the information contained in them into evidence in consumer lawsuits claiming the dealer failed to disclose prior damage and accident history. To help defend against such allegations, dealers should consider adopting a policy and setting internal procedures to effectively and provably disclose information to customers.

A relatively new trend in automotive marketing is “Ringless Voicemail” or “Direct to Voicemail” technology: instead of calling a potential customer and leaving a voicemail, a software system deposits a message directly onto the voicemail server of a recipient’s cell phone carrier. Vendors offering this service approach dealers with claims like “Voice Messages Sent Directly to Customer’s Smartphone: FCC Compliant; Do Not Call Compliant, Customer phone never rings!” However, regulators like the FCC or state attorney generals may not see this new technology as a legal method for contacting consumers who have not agreed to receive prerecorded messages.

Dealership asset sales commonly involve the termination by the seller of its employees at closing and the rehiring of the employees by the buyer. Depending on the number of affected employees, both federal and California law may impose prior notification requirements on the seller, failing which the seller could be hit with substantial financial damages and penalties.

With multiple allegations of sexual harassment against movie mogul Harvey Weinstein dominating headlines, employers may be wondering whether they are doing enough to protect themselves against liability for harassment—and their employees may be wondering whether they have valid claims to bring against them.

Every dealership is different, and every market is different. This truth has now also become a rallying cry for dealerships across the country as dealerships push back against sales effectiveness measures. These efforts are picking up steam, and now can serve as a strong argument against termination based exclusively or mostly on measures of sales effectiveness. In a new twist, though, three dealerships in New York have successfully challenged the use of sales effectiveness measures in incentive programs. This may signal a new battleground to fight overbearing factory demands.

You’ve successfully defended a lawsuit and obtained a jury verdict in your favor. You lean back, contemplate all of plaintiffs’ actions in the prior case, and think you’ve got a slam dunk malicious prosecution case, right? Not so fast.

Get an update on the current status of the CFPB arbitration rule. We explore several recent cases—all from California–that highlight various issues facing reliance on arbitration agreements. Dealers and their attorneys will face difficult decisions about how to move forward within the new CFPB rules and case guidance; this article highlights additional considerations that should be kept in mind over the next several months.

A split shift is a work schedule set by the employer that includes a block of unpaid time of more than one hour (other than a bona fide meal period) that occurs between two work periods. For example, a split shift would occur for a day in which the employer schedules an employee to work from 9:00 a.m. until 12:00 p.m. and then again at 2:00 p.m. until 7:00 p.m.

We previously reported on the Encino Motorcars LLC v. Navarro case, in which federal courts have grappled with the issue of whether dealership service advisors fall within a provision of the Fair Labor Standards Act that exempts from overtime employees in certain dealership sales positions. The U.S. Supreme Court has announced that it will once again review the case, which will hopefully resolve the conflicting court rulings.

Decisions to discipline and/or terminate employees are serious and often difficult judgment calls that employers regularly face. Because these actions can profoundly affect employee morale and even expose employers to legal claims, it is important for employers to carefully approach these decisions through a fair and credible process. One step in the process that is often neglected is the thorough investigation of the facts leading to the employment action.

A recent Federal Court of Appeals decision serves as a reminder of the legal complexity and uncertainty that employers face in administering medical leaves of absence as a reasonable accommodation. In Severson v. Heartland Woodcraft, Inc., the Seventh Circuit affirmed the lower court’s ruling that an employer did not violate the Americans with Disabilities Act by not granting an employee a medical leave of absence that exceeded his FMLA leave period by two to three months.

In the retail sales environment, holidays are often the busiest and most profitable times and such businesses must schedule adequate staffing. But are employers legally obligated to provide any particular paid holidays off for employees? Car dealerships often offer paid holidays for employees whose departments are closed on the major holidays, and even sales department employees often have paid holidays on Thanksgiving and Christmas. The common practice of offering some level of paid holiday benefits can create the expectation or impression that paid holidays are a legal obligation.

Last year, there was much publicity and concern arising from the Department of Labor’s new minimum salary levels for employees to qualify for the white collar exemptions from minimum wage and overtime pay under the Fair Labor Standards Act. These new minimum salary levels would have dramatically increased from $23,000 to $47, 476 per year, and included automatic upward adjustments over time. However, a Texas court has stepped in to invalidate these changes.

We previously published information on the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s new reporting requirements for which employers with 100 or more employees would be required include compensation data in their annual EE0-1 reports commencing on March 31, 2018 for 2017 data. These new EEO-1 reports include information regarding total compensation and hours worked by race, ethnicity and gender, EEO-1 category and salary ranges.

In July, the U.S. Customs and Immigration Service issued a new Form I-9 for documenting eligibility to work in the U.S. For the time being, employers could use either the new form or the existing I-9 Form (which has a revision date of November 14, 2006). But commencing September 18 2017, employers must start using the revised form, which contains a revision date of 07/17/17.

The Scali Law Firm announced today that Halbert “Bert” Rasmussen has joined the firm as a partner in the Los Angeles office. Rasmussen, previously a partner at Arent Fox, LLP, is highly regarded for the breadth and depth of his industry knowledge and experience in representing major players in car, truck, bus, and motorcycle sales, finance, and technology. “Bert’s addition represents a milestone in the expansion of the firm’s practice, which now includes thirteen lawyers in 5 offices,” said Christian Scali, principal of the Scali Law Firm.

There are ongoing indications that the Department of Labor under the Trump administration will continue to roll back Obama-era initiatives. The latest pertains to the controversial Union Persuader rule that we reported on last year. That new rule would have required employers to disclose information regarding their retention of consultants and attorneys to persuade employees to not unionize. The proposed Union Persuader rule never took effect and its enforcement was delayed while it was challenged in the courts and enjoined nationwide late last year. Now, the Department of Labor has published a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking that proposes to rescind this rule. The Department of Labor also withdrew the informal guidance it previously issued in 2015 and 2016 on independent contractors and joint employment.