On June 2, 2016, a new paid sick leave ordinance was just signed into law for the City of Los Angeles. This ordinance goes into effect July 1, 2016, and like the City’s new minimum wage ordinance, it covers all employees who perform at least two hours of work within the geographic boundaries of the City of Los Angeles within a particular week.

Yesterday, the U.S. Supreme Court (SCOTUS) vacated the Ninth Circuit’s decision in Encino Motorcars LLC v. Navarro. California auto dealers are likely to hear a lot about this decision today and this week as other law firms report on it. But we want to let you know that if you are a California auto dealership and you have service advisor pay plans that are compliant with California Wage Order No. 7 (like the pay plans we draft and recommend to our California auto dealer clients) and have compliant pay practices (like the pay practices we recommend to our California auto dealers), Navarro does not have (and never had) any impact on you.

We’ve received reports that some law firms are reaching out to auto dealers to sign them up for representation due to a July 1, 2016 deadline under the United State’s Department of Labor’s (DOL) March 24 “Persuader Rule.” This will help you interpret what this is all about.

Federal, State, County and City minimum wages can vary, but employers will be safe if they remember to comply with the highest applicable minimum wage in their location. For auto dealers located in the City of Los Angeles (this includes areas like East and South Los Angeles, Greater Hollywood, and Van Nuys), the minimum wage rises to $10.50 per hour on July 1, 2016. This is a good time to update your pay plans if necessary, and ensure that payroll is aware of the upcoming change.

Dealers should get ready for the return of the days of consumer class actions seeking rescission of four years worth of deal files. A drastic change in the law may revive these killer class actions in mid-2017. Here, at the Scali Law Firm, we've been advocating corporate compliance and ethics programs due, in part, to this impending change, so that dealers can limit their liability before the change goes into effect.

The California Supreme Court has provide some clarity regarding "suitable seating" requirements for employees. To avoid a class action, Dealers should conduct a review and analysis now to determine compliance.

There's loads of instructional case authority interpreting employer obligations to reasonably accommodate disabilities under the Fair Employment and Housing Act ("FEHA") and the federal Americans with Disabilities Act ("ADA"). But there's little pertaining to associational disability discrimination (yeah, it's a thing—discrimination against a person based on that person's association or relationship with someone who has a disability). Until now.

Customer information is often one of the many assets transferred in the sale of a dealership. Customer information is subject to privacy, solicitation, and data security laws regulating its disclosure and use. This article provides a basic overview of some of the main privacy concerns that a selling dealer faces when transferring customer information.

Lawsuits arising from motor vehicle collisions often include a claim against the owner of the vehicle because California law permits an award of damages against the vehicle owner for the negligence of a permissive user. For dealers operating their own vehicle rental operation the potential liability, as well as the cost of defending the lawsuit, is a significant burden. Our firm has successfully used a provision of federal law, commonly known as the Graves Amendment, to convince plaintiff’s lawyers not to file suit against our rental company clients, or to defeat the vicarious liability claim on summary judgment.

With all the recent publicity surrounding increases in state and local minimum wage requirements and concern about how those increases could affect auto dealers, recent changes to another set of employee compensation rules have received substantially less attention. The U.S Department of Labor has made changes to its regulations that will more than double minimum salary requirements for while collar workers, which warrants proactive planning on the part of dealers and businesses in general.