California employment case index

The outside-salesperson exemption is determined by a fact-specific inquiry into how the employee actually spends his or her time, not merely the employer’s job description or expectations; California uses its own quantitative standard (more than half the time engaged in outside sales) rather than importing the federal…

The DLSE’s interpretive policies constitute regulations and are void because they were not adopted under the Administrative Procedure Act (the “underground regulation” rule); nevertheless, the agency properly exercised enforcement jurisdiction, and the IWC wage orders apply to the work at issue, so the trial court…

S.G. Borello & Sons, Inc. v. Department of Industrial Relations (1989) 48 Cal.3d 341 sets California’s multifactor control test for employee vs. independent-contractor status — the right to control the manner and means of the work, plus secondary factors, applied in light of the statute’s protective purpose. It still governs the Assembly Bill 5 exemptions after Dynamex.

A worker fired nine months into his vacation year was denied every day of accrued vacation pay because his employer's policy made eligibility turn on still being employed on his anniversary date – a rule it had applied to roughly 300 departing employees. A unanimous Supreme Court held the policy could not defeat the right. Vacation pay is not a gratuity but deferred wages earned by the year's labor, so a proportionate right to it vests as the work is performed, exactly as pension rights vest on acceptance of employment. An anniversary requirement is at most a condition subsequent, and Labor Code section 227.3 forbids an employer policy from turning that condition into a forfeiture of what has already been earned.