Today the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas issued a nationwide injunction that blocks the Department of Labor’s new minimum salary requirements for the federal white collar overtime exemptions, which were set to take effect December 1, 2016. The Court held that the DOL’s new salary rules are contrary to legislative intent and that the DOL exceeded its authority with respect to the new minimum salary requirements, as well as the future automatic adjustments.

Next week, a Texas federal court is expected to rule on whether the U.S. Department of Labor’s new overtime rules will take effect as scheduled on Dec. 1, 2016. These new rules, which raise the minimum salary requirements for the Executive, Administrative and Professional exemptions to $913 per week ($47,476 annually) and set automatic future adjustments, have been challenged as unlawful by a number of states.

Earlier this year we notified you about the new expanded union persuader rule issued by the U.S. Department of Labor this past spring. On Wednesday a Texas federal judge permanently blocked the DOL’s enforcement of these expansions to the persuader rule, finding that the rule is unlawful.

The Northern California Record interviewed Scali Law Firm founder and managing partner, Christian Scali, about this ruling from California's Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. Their decision in Gonzales v. CarMax reversed a district court’s summary judgment in favor of CarMax Auto Superstores LLC and remanded with instructions to enter summary judgment for plaintiff Travis Gonzales. Gonzalez filed the lawsuit against CarMax under the Consumer Legal Remedies Act and Unfair Competition Law.

Since 2004, the Paid Family Leave program has provided monetary benefits to employees who have to temporarily miss work to care for a sick family member or to bond with a new child. This program is funded through employee payroll deductions into the State Disability Insurance fund. Earlier this year, the Governor signed into law a bill that will take effect January of 2018 to increase these benefits.

Final pay checks have special protections under California law, and therefore, employers must be very careful in calculating and issuing them. We often encounter situations in which an employer wishes to make deductions from an employee’s final paycheck for business losses, such as unreturned uniforms or equipment.

Most employers have had employees request time off for medical reasons at some point, either for planned medical procedures, or when the employee is out unexpectedly and notifies the employer that he/she cannot return to work for some period of time. However many employers are unaware of the specific response and notification requirements that are triggered once they are put on notice of an employee’s need for medical leave.

Do you run internet searches or check social media accounts on job applicants? For some employers the internet has become a tool to further screen prospective employees. However, employers must be careful in how they go about gathering such information because search engines and social media sites may expose the employer to information involving protected categories.

Part 2 of the article Selling Your Dealership: Organizational and Compliance Considerations, by Scali Law Firm attorneys Christian J. Scali, John P. Swenson and Gus N. Paras, was published in Automotive Buy Sell Report.

This article, by Daily Journal staff writer Eli Wolfe, discusses The Scali Law Firm's recent expansion into Sacramento with the hiring of Monica J. Baumann.

In the October/November 2016 issue of West Coast Dealer, The Scali Law Firm published a template letter of opposition to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) for independent auto dealers to consider completing and sending to the CFPB in advance of its rule-making concerning the potential ban on class action waivers in automobile financing agreements.

To better serve its Central and Northern California clients on staying ahead of the rapidly changing automotive regulatory landscape, The Scali Law Firm today announced that it has expanded to Sacramento by adding Monica J. Baumann who, as CNCDA’s Director of Regulatory and Legislative Affairs, has overseen cutting edge, industry-affecting litigation, assisted in the preparation and presentation of new legislation affecting auto dealers in California, overseen the revision of a number of the CNCDA’s dealer manuals, spearheaded the first ever CNCDA Employment Law Manual, and presented numerous educational compliance seminars to auto dealers.

The Part 1 of the article Selling Your Dealership: Organizational and Compliance Considerations, by Scali Law Firm attorneys Christian J. Scali, John P. Swenson and Gus N. Paras, was published in Automotive Buy Sell Report.

Our recent article, Information Security best practices in an age of spear-phishing, malware and ransomware, was just featured in the National Association of Dealer Counsel's September 2016 issue of Defender.

Three months ago, we reported that the California Court of Appeal stretched precedent to expand the FEHA’s protections for persons merely associated with someone with a disability (the first case of its kind to do so). Specifically, the Court found that an employee who had informed his employer of his need to administer dialysis to his sick son, and whose request to work the early shift had been accommodated for years, could maintain a claim for failure to reasonably accommodate a disability when this accommodation was taken away (apparently for no good business reason). The reasoning was that FEHA’s reasonable accommodation provision extended to persons with disabilities who were associated with employees or applicants and this association was itself the employee or applicant’s “disability.” But the Plaintiff in this case had previously abandoned his claim for failure to reasonably accommodate. So the defendant asked the court of appeal for a rehearing of the issue in light of that critical fact. The court of appeal agreed to rehear the case.

Last week, the DOT released its new guidelines on the development of highly autonomous vehicles. Scali Law Firm managing partner, Christian J. Scali, comments on these guidelines in the Daily Journal's article titled New driverless car standards create a patchy road map, by staff reporter, Matthew Blake.

As print, radio, and television media become a smaller part of consumers’ lives, dealerships are relying more on internet advertising to reach new clients. Despite this increased use of internet advertising, many dealership websites are not compliant with applicable laws. For example, although many California dealerships provide legally-mandated disclosures after a monthly lease payment in their print ads, they often fail to provide these disclosures online or bury them in a tiny disclaimer at the bottom of a web page. But the majority of advertising laws apply consistently in all forms of media. This article briefly addresses three major deficiencies that we often see on dealership websites.