Compliance Stuff

  The plaintiffs’ bar has been ramping up lawsuits for alleged violations of state and federal wiretapping laws (e.g., California CIPA, Florida SCA, Federal ECPA) for many months now. Historically, the main issue has been that the defendant did not get the necessary consent because they did not try to do so, meaning there was no cookie consent mechanism in place. Recently, the claims have shifted, and plaintiffs are taking issue with whether and how your cookie banner actually performs. When “Reject” Doesn’t Actually Mean Reject A scenario plaintiffs’ counsel loves is the following: A user lands on a website. A cookie banner pops up. The user clicks “Necessary Cookies Only” or toggles off every non-essential category (performance, functional, targeting, the works). The banner disappears. The user browses assuming that the tracking has stopped, when, in actuality, analytics and advertising tags continue to fire. This scenario has now been the subject of many complaints, often suppor...

Artificial intelligence is no longer a theoretical disruption—it is actively reshaping how work gets done. Across industries, AI and automation are eliminating entire categories of jobs, from data entry and customer service to back-office processing and content generation. As these tools mature, employers are redesigning workflows, consolidating functions, and eliminating positions altogether. But employment laws haven’t changed alongside this technology. E mployers implementing AI-driven reductions in force (RIFs) must still comply with laws that apply to any other layoff—including federal and state anti-discrimination statutes, the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) Act and its state counterparts, and the Older Workers Benefit Protection Act (OWBPA) . The sophistication of technology does not reduce the sophistication required of the surrounding legal process. An improperly handled RIF can expose employers to significant class and collective actions seeking back pay...

While the One Big Beautiful Bill Act made headlines for tax and spending cuts, it also contains significant changes to the federal government’s treatment of COVID era Employee Retention Tax Credit (ERC) claims — many of which are still pending with the IRS. Taxpayers and ERC advisers need to understand these changes, and how they could impact pending claims and potential liability. Congress designed the ERC to encourage businesses to retain employees during the COVID-19 pandemic. The CARES Act allowed certain employers to receive a tax credit for the first quarter of 2020 through the second quarter of 2021 . The American Rescue Plan (ARPA), passed in March 2021, extended the ERC (with certain restrictions) through the fourth quarter of 2021. The ERC’s complexity, combined with widespread marketing by promoters, created a backlog of questionable claims that the IRS is still struggling to review. As of August 2024, the IRS had disallowed 28,000 claims with an estimated worth of approxim...

Introduction Consider the following scenarios: A customer repeatedly enters your company’s workplace, berates your employees, uses profanity, and then leaves. (Let’s call her “Cruella.”) Or perhaps a customer consistently comes in and asks your employees out on dates, tells them about his sexual prowess, won’t take no for an answer, and refuses to leave the premises when asked. (Let’s call him “Ken.”) This conduct hasn’t  y et  involved stalking, assault, battery, violence or threats of violence, but it is still alarming, annoying, and harassing to your employees, causing them distress and impeding their work. Even though California requires employers to take proactive steps to protect employees from harassing behavior, prior to Jan. 1, 2025, you may have been out of luck; unless and until the behavior escalated to stalking, assault, threats of violence or actual violence, you might lack a sufficient legal basis to restrain Cruella and Ken from entering your workplace. Fortu...

  One instance of a coworker directing the “N-word” to a Black employee can rise to the level of being so severe as to make for a racially hostile work environment in violation of the California Fair Employment and Housing Act (“FEHA”), the state Supreme Court recently ruled.  The case is a valuable reminder for employers of   mistakes not to make   in evaluating harassment allegations. The California Supreme Court’s decision in  Bailey v. San Francisco District Attorney’s Office  involved two investigative assistants in the District Attorney’s Office.  The Plaintiff was Black, and her coworker was not.   On one occasion, the coworker told the Plaintiff that she saw a mouse run under the Plaintiff’s desk.  Plaintiff “was startled and jumped out of her chair,” the Supreme Court wrote. The coworker then “walked up to [Plaintiff] and quietly said, ‘ You ‘N-words’ is so scary .’”   Plaintiff immediately left her office and – “crying and upse...