Court Certifies Class of Almost 100 Sexual Harassment Survivors Seeking Justice From McDonald’s Restaurant Where They Worked

/in /by

On December 29, 2021, the United States District Court for the Western District of Michigan certified a class of 95 women who allege they all suffered sexual harassment at the hands of the same manager while employed at a franchised McDonald’s restaurant.  The lawsuit, Ries v. McDonald’s, alleges a years-long pattern of unchecked sexual harassment at the McDonald’s restaurant, including near-constant physical and verbal harassment that three General Managers witnessed on multiple occasions.  Despite observing an unrelenting stream of sexual harassment by one of their managers and receiving multiple verbal complaints from employees, the General Managers and their superiors did not take action to end the harassment and protect their employees.  The members of the class range in age and include many women who were in high school during the time they worked at the McDonald’s restaurant, with some class members who were as young as 16 when they were harassed.

The Court found that “[g]iven the consistency, frequency, severity, and visibility of [the manager’s] conduct according to Plaintiffs’ evidence, there is sufficient overlap between the class members’ experiences to render the existence of an objectively hostile work environment one that can be resolved on a class-wide basis.”  The Court observed, “The class members worked in the same restaurant, in the same confined space, and experienced direct or indirect harassment by the same individual whose conduct was apparently consistent and unrelenting over an extended period of time,” and continued, “Defendants were consistent in their response to [the manager’s] behavior.  They apparently did almost nothing about it until March 2019.”

The Court’s certification of the class in Ries represents an enormous victory for the class members, as many would have financial difficulty pursuing individual claims against the McDonald’s restaurant.  The decision also shows the power of women’s collective voices in speaking out against harassment.  The  court’s ruling means that all 95 women may proceed together to trial against the McDonald’s franchise.

The Court appointed Altshuler Berzon LLP as Class Counsel, along with co-counsel from the ACLU Women’s Rights Project and McKnight, Canzano, Smith, Radtke & Brault P.C.

A copy of the Court’s order granting class certification can be found here.

Altshuler Berzon LLP Files Union Amicus Brief to the Supreme Court Supporting Stay of Injunction Against CMS Healthcare Industry Vaccination Regulation

/in /by

On Wednesday, December 22, 2021, the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), and the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) filed amicus curiae briefs in two cases in the United States Supreme Court: Biden v. Missouri, No. 21A240, and Becerra v. Louisiana, No. 21A241. In these cases, two district courts issued injunctions preventing the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) from enforcing a new regulation requiring the staff of all healthcare providers participating in Medicare or Medicaid to be vaccinated against Covid-19. The federal government has asked the Supreme Court to stay these injunctions pending appeal, and SEIU, AFT, and AFSCME support the federal government’s stay applications. As the Unions argue, under-vaccination poses severe risks to healthcare workers as well as patients, and CMS’s rule is critical for ensuring that healthcare facilities like hospitals and nursing homes can function safely and effectively in the face of an ongoing pandemic. The Unions’ briefs highlight the stories of two SEIU members who work in nursing homes on the frontlines of the fight against Covid-19 and have seen the need for staff vaccination firsthand. The Unions’ briefs also demonstrate that, contrary to the conclusion reached by the lower courts, CMS has clear statutory authority to issue the regulation, which is a straightforward health and safety standard for the Medicare and Medicaid programs and does not implicate the Supreme Court’s “major questions” precedents.

The amicus briefs can be found here and here.

Altshuler Berzon LLP is counsel of record for the Unions as amici curiae.

Altshuler Berzon LLP Partner Named a “Top 100” California Attorney

/in /by
Michael Rubin honored for fifth year in a row

September 15, 2021 – California’s legal newspaper, the “Daily Journal,” today named Altshuler Berzon LLP partner Michael Rubin as one of California’s “Top 100 Attorneys.” This is the fifth straight year the “Daily Journal” has named Michael to the Top 100, and it has regularly named him one of California’s “Top 75 Labor and Employment Attorneys” as well.

The published profile focused on Michael’s work this past year on two major lawsuits seeking to reform California’s broken unemployment insurance system: In re Bank of America California Unemployment Benefits Litigation, MDL Case No. 21-MD-02992-LAB-MSB, and Center for Workers’ Rights v. Employment Development Department, Alameda County Superior Ct. No. RG21106525.

In the Bank of America case, Altshuler Berzon LLP attorneys Michael Rubin, Stacey Leyton, Connie Chan, and Matt Murray, in conjunction with co-counsel at Cotchett, Pitre & McCarthy, LLP, obtained a preliminary injunction requiring the Bank to cease freezing the UI accounts of hundreds of thousands of Californians who had complained to the Bank about unauthorized transactions made on their Bank-issued UI benefit debit card accounts. In the EDD case, Altshuler Berzon attorneys Michael Rubin and Amanda Lynch, in conjunction with co-counsel at the Center for Workers’ Rights, negotiated a settlement that requires EDD to promptly pay UI benefits to 300,000 UI claimants in “continuing claims” status whose UI payments had been delayed, often for months, as a result of unjustified administrative delays.

Court Rules Proposition 22 Unconstitutional

/in /by

The Alameda County Superior Court issued a decision on August 20 holding that California’s Proposition 22 conflicts with the California Constitution and is invalid in its entirety.  The case, Castellanos v.  California, No. RG21088725, was filed by SEIU, SEIU California, and four individual drivers and consumers after gig economy companies funded a $225 million initiative campaign that convinced the voters to exempt drivers who work for transportation and delivery network companies like Uber, Lyft, and DoorDash (who the proposition calls “app-based drivers”) from California’s employment law protections.

The court held Proposition 22 unconstitutional for three reasons.  First, by excluding “app-based drivers” from the state’s workers’ compensation system and forbidding the state legislature from including them in the future, Proposition 22 impermissibly interferes with the legislature’s “plenary power” over the workers’ compensation system under Article XIV, Section 4 of the California Constitution.  Second, although Proposition 22 lacks any substantive provisions addressing collective bargaining by “app-based drivers,” it impermissibly deems any legislation authorizing representation of app-based drivers an “amendment” to Proposition 22 that may be enacted only by a seven-eighths vote of each house of the state legislature.  A statutory initiative cannot limit future legislation that does not actually amend the substantive terms of an initiative.  And third, Proposition 22 violates the requirement, under Article II, Section 8(d) of the California Constitution, that initiative statutes be “limited to a single subject.”  The Court concluded that Proposition 22’s limitation of drivers’ collective bargaining rights “appears only to protect the economic interests of the network companies in having a divided, ununionized workforce” and was “utterly unrelated to” the Proposition’s “stated common purpose” of “protecting the opportunity for Californians to drive their cars on an independent contract basis, to provide those drivers with certain minimum welfare standards, and to set minimum consumer protection and safety standards to protect the public.”

The petitioners in the case are represented by Altshuler Berzon LLP, Olson Remcho, LLP, and the SEIU legal department.   A copy of the Superior Court’s decision is available here.  News coverage of the decision can be found here and here.

Workers at Oakland McDonald’s Restaurant Reach Precedent-Setting Settlement

/in /by

August 11, 2021 – When a COVID-19 outbreak at the Telegraph Ave. McDonald’s restaurant in Oakland threatened workers and their families, four workers filed a public nuisance lawsuit in Alameda County Superior Court and sought a temporary restraining order (TRO) to ensure that the restaurant implemented necessary safety measures.  The court granted plaintiffs’ requested relief and issued a TRO on June 22, 2020; later continuing the TRO’s provisions on July 9, 2020, and converting the TRO to a preliminary injunction on August 13, 2020.  In late July 2021, the parties reached a settlement agreement that resolves this litigation.  The settlement continues the workplace safety measures for up to another year and establishes a health and safety committee.  The committee, which will include the restaurant owner-operator, the restaurant’s general manager, and three crew members on a rotating basis, will meet on a monthly basis to discuss the protective measures required by the settlement, as well as any other measures that may be necessary to prevent the spread of COVID-19 in the workplace.  The committee will provide workers with a voice in addressing the evolving COVID-19 pandemic and the need to ensure safe working conditions.  The plaintiffs issued this statement regarding the historic settlement.  For press coverage of the settlement, see here and here.

Settlement with California’s Employment Development Department Requires Immediate Payments to Hundreds of Thousands of Unemployed Californians

/in /by
EDD agrees to sweeping changes in how it handles continuing unemployment insurance claims

July 23, 2021 – In a groundbreaking settlement negotiated by Altshuler Berzon LLP on behalf of the Center for Workers’ Rights, California’s Employment Development Department has agreed to make significant changes in how it processes unemployment insurance claims and to immediately pay millions of dollars in conditional UI benefits to unemployed Californians, many of whom have been waiting months to receive those benefits. The affected claimants were previously approved to receive unemployment benefits, but had their payments suspended without explanation while EDD has been working through its huge backlog of eligibility determinations.

EDD’s announcement follows months of negotiations, which culminated in the filing of a class action complaint for injunctive relief and a settlement that now awaits court approval – although EDD agreed to begin implementation immediately, without waiting for further court order. The complaint alleges that EDD’s prolonged delays in providing payment to unemployment insurance claimants in continuing claims status violate the Social Security Act, which requires state unemployment insurance programs to maintain “methods of administration 
 reasonably calculated to insure full payment of unemployment compensation when due.” The settlement requires EDD to provide conditional payment to unemployment insurance claimants in continuing claims status when EDD has failed to make a determination regarding the claimant’s eligibility by the end of the week following the week that EDD first became aware of the eligibility issue.  The settlement also requires EDD to notify those claimants that the payments they are receiving are conditional pending the result of EDD’s investigation and to inform those claimants of the basis for EDD’s eligibility concerns and how the claimant can respond to those concerns.  More information about the agreement is available here and here. The complaint, entitled Center for Workers’ Rights v. EDD et al., is pending in Alameda County Superior Court and can be read here.

Altshuler Berzon LLP attorneys Michael Rubin and Amanda Lynch represent the Center for Workers’ Rights in this case, assisted by summer associate Nina Oishi. The complaint, entitled Center for Workers’ Rights v. EDD et al., is pending in Alameda County Superior Court.

Court Refuses to Toss Case Against McDonald’s for Sexual Harassment at 100 Corporate Operated Restaurants in Florida

/in /by

July 20, 2021 – In April 2020, Altshuler Berzon LLP, with co-counsel, filed a putative class action lawsuit against McDonald’s, on behalf of all women who work at McDonald’s corporate owned and operated restaurants in Florida.  The lawsuit, Fairley et al. v. McDonald’s Corp., et al.,  alleges a pattern of unchecked sexual harassment at 100 restaurants in Florida.  In particular, the lawsuit alleges that McDonald’s does not have sufficient policies, procedures, and training to prevent sex harassment.  It also alleges that McDonald’s fails to train low level managers – to whom reports of sex harassment are most frequently made or who may actually observe the harassment while performing their job – as to what to do when they receive a report of harassment or observe harassment themselves.  McDonald’s filed a motion to dismiss the case, and to strike the class action allegations.  The Court denied that motion, finding that Plaintiffs had alleged sufficient facts to move forward on all of their claims on behalf of all women workers at McDonald’s corporate owned and operated restaurants in Florida.  The Plaintiffs are seeking $500 million in class-wide damages.

California Supreme Court Rules that Meal and Rest Period Premium Pay Must Include All Forms of Nondiscretionary Compensation

/in /by

In a significant victory for California workers, the California Supreme Court ruled on July 15, 2021, in Ferra v. Loews Hollywood Hotel, LLC, that the premium pay owed to an employee who does not receive a legally compliant meal or rest period is calculated by incorporating all forms of nondiscretionary compensation owed to the employee.

Labor Code Section 226.7(c) states that the premium pay is one hour of pay at the employee’s “regular rate of compensation.” Reversing the Court of Appeal, the Supreme Court ruled that this language is interpreted identically to the term “regular rate” in federal and state overtime law. In overtime law, the “regular rate” is a calculation that incorporates all forms of nondiscretionary compensation, including, for example, hourly wage rates, commissions, shift differentials, piece rate pay, and nondiscretionary bonuses. The Supreme Court rejected the employer’s argument that “regular rate of compensation” means only the employee’s base hourly wage rate. 

Michael Rubin and Eileen Goldsmith of Altshuler Berzon LLP filed an amicus brief in the Supreme Court on behalf of the California Employment Lawyers Association, supporting the employee plaintiffs. Ms. Goldsmith participated in the Supreme Court oral argument. 

You can read the decision here.

 

Former Altshuler Berzon LLP Attorney Nominated to Ninth Circuit

/in /by
Jennifer Sung to be the third former Altshuler Berzon attorney tapped for the federal bench

June 30, 2021 – The White House this morning announced the nomination of labor law attorney Jennifer Sung to the United States Court of Appeal for the Ninth Circuit. Ms. Sung, who has been a member of the Oregon Employment Relations Board since 2017 and was previously a partner at McKanna Bishop Joffe LLP in Portland, was an Altshuler Berzon LLP associate between 2007 to 2013.  She joined Altshuler Berzon after clerking for Ninth Circuit Judge Betty Binns Fletcher and completing a two-year Skadden Fellowship at the Brennan Center for Justice.  Before law school, Ms. Sung worked as a union organizer for seven years.

Ms. Sung joins a select group of former Altshuler Berzon LLP attorneys who have become federal judges, including former partners Indira Talwani (D. Mass) and Marsha Berzon (9th. Circuit). She is an extraordinary lawyer and will be a superb Ninth Circuit judge. She will be the first Asian American Pacific Islander judge from Oregon on the Ninth Circuit.  We wish her all the best in the years to come!

Federal District Court Issues Preliminary Injunction in Unemployment Insurance Class Action Against Bank of America

/in /by

San Francisco – June 1, 2021  Judge Vince Chhabria (N.D. Cal.) today issued a groundbreaking preliminary injunction order in nine consolidated class action cases against Bank of America, in which Altshuler Berzon LLP serves as interim lead co-counsel.

In Yick v. Bank of America, N.A., plaintiffs contend that the Bank violated the rights of hundreds of thousands of Californians whose unemployment insurance benefits were paid through Bank-issued debit cards.  Although state and federal law require the Bank promptly to investigate cardholder claims of unauthorized transactions on their accounts and to provisionally credit those stolen funds to the cardholders if the investigations cannot be completed within 10 business days, plaintiffs contend that the Bank denied cardholders’ claims and froze their accounts without the required investigation, based solely on the Bank’s use of a flawed and highly unreliable initial “Claim Fraud Filter” that erroneously identified tens of thousands of legitimate UI cardholders as criminals using stolen identities.  Legitimate cardholders who were erroneously flagged by the Bank’s “Claim Fraud Filter” were promptly cut off from access to their past, present, and future UI benefits, and plaintiffs contend that the Bank made it nearly impossible for those cardholders to regain access to their benefits accounts.

The Court’s preliminary injunction prohibits the Bank from continuing to deny unauthorized transaction claims or to freeze cardholder accounts based on the results of the Bank’s Claim Fraud Filter, and further prohibits the Banks from in any way using the results of the Claim Fraud Filter in investigating unauthorized transaction claims or deciding whether to issue claimants provisional or permanent credit.  The order also requires the Bank to reopen all claims that the Bank previously denied based on the results of the Claim Fraud Filter, to give those individuals a prompt opportunity to authenticate their identities, and to issue provisional credit pending investigation to anyone who authenticates their identity if the Bank does not complete its investigation within 10 business days.  In addition, the order requires the Bank to expand its customer service hours and establish dedicated toll-free hotlines to assist class members with their unauthorized transaction claims and with unblocking their accounts.

Additional background on the case can be found here. News reports on this historic injunction may be found here and here.

Altshuler Berzon LLP attorneys Michael Rubin, Stacey Leyton, Connie Chan, Matthew Murray, and James Baltzer are co-counsel in this case, along with attorneys from Cotchett, Pitre & McCarthy LLP and others.