The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit just denied a request to review en banc a panel ruling that authorizes trial courts to consider evidence that would be inadmissible at trial when deciding whether a class may be certified (Sali v. Corona Regional Medical Center (D.C. No. 5:14-cv-00985-PSG-JPR)). The decision was filed
Scott M. Pechaitis
Sexual Harassment Class Investigations on the Rise with EEOC
Since September, stories of sexual harassment have dominated the headlines. In what USA Today dubbed the “Weinstein Effect,” workplaces of all types and size have been seeing employees step forward to take part in the #MeToo movement by shining light on abuses of power by companies’ leadership. The increased focus on sexual harassment has created…
Is Equal Pay the Next Big Thing in Class Actions?
On February 1st, the EEOC announced it would begin requiring employers to submit information on employee wages and work hours broken down by gender, race and EEO-1 category as part of its annual EEO-1 reporting process. For the first time, the EEOC (and the OFCCP) will have nationwide data on employee pay to…
Is Your Expert Analysis Protected by the Attorney-Client Privilege?
In this age of Big Data, expert analyses are critical to class and collective actions. Wage and hour lawsuits hinge on experts dueling over employee time and pay data. The EEOC’s Equal Pay and systemic discrimination initiatives are driven by statisticians’ analyses of employers’ robust payroll and applicant tracking system data. In many of these…