Litigation involving members of close corporations may create issues with attorney representation. In Ontiveros v. Constable, 245 Cal. App. 4th 686, 199 Cal. Rptr. 3d 836 (2016), a minority shareholder brought derivative claims against the corporation, the majority...
Month: May 2016
California’s Fair Day’s Pay Act Creates Personal Liability for Wage and Hour Liability
As of January 1, 2016, any individual who is an owner, director, officer, or managing agent of an employer may be held liable as the employer if he or she violates, or causes to be violated, wage and hour provisions. Cal. Lab. Code § 558.1. The California Supreme...
Leave To Amend And Compulsory Cross-Claims: A Note About Code Civ. Proc. § 473
By its terms, California Code of Civil Procedure Section 473 allows a court to grant leave to amend "any pleading." This broad language, however, is misleading. When a party fails to plead a compulsory cause of action in a cross complaint, a motion for leave to amend...
Debt Non-Dischargeable Without Making False Representation to Creditor
In Husky International Electronics, Inc. v. Ritz published on May 16, 2016, the Supreme Court of the United States ("SCOTUS") found a debt not dischargeable because of the debtor's intercompany transfer scheme to avoid paying the debt. The debt was owed by Chrysalis...
President Obama recently signed the Defend Trade Secrets Act of 2016 (“DTSA”)
President Obama recently signed the Defend Trade Secrets Act of 2016 ("DTSA"), which provides California businesses with another tool to protect their trade secrets. Specifically, the DTSA provides trade secret owners with a federal civil right of action to pursue...
Ninth Circuit Approves 15 Minute Wage Rounding Policy and One Minute of Uncompensated Time as De minimis
In Corbin v. Time Warner Entm't-Advance/Newhouse P'ship, the Ninth Circuit was recently asked to determine whether hourly compensation policies at a California call center which rounded hourly time stamps to the nearest quarter hour and which required employees to...