Workforce Bulletin

By Michael Kun

We have written several times in this blog about California’s unusual – and unusually vague – “suitable seating” law, which requires some employers to provide some employees with suitable seating if the nature of their work reasonably permits it.  The previously obscure law has become the subject of numerous class actions in California.  And parties and the courts have struggled to interpret a vague law that has little legislative history and even less interpretive case law.

As we wrote most recently in January, the Ninth Circuit essentially threw up its hands ...

The Ninth Circuit has asked the California Supreme Court to clarify California's "suitable seating" law requiring certain employers to "provide" "suitable seating" to some employees where "the nature of the work reasonably permits the use of seats." The Ninth Circuit has asked whether the term "nature of the work" refers to individual tasks or a full range of duties, whether an employer's business judgment should be considered in determining if the nature of the work "reasonably permits" the use of a seat, and whether the employee must prove what would constitute a "suitable seat" to prevail.

By Michael Kun

As we have written before in this space,  the latest wave of class actions in California is one alleging that employers have not complied with obscure requirements requiring the provision of “suitable seating” to employees – and that employees are entitled to significant penalties as a result.

The “suitable seating” provisions are buried so deep in Wage Orders that most plaintiffs’ attorneys were not even aware of them until recently.  Importantly, they do not require all employers to provide seats to all employees.  Instead, they provide that employers ...

By Michael Kun

Employers with operations in California have become aware in recent years of an obscure provision in California Wage Orders that requires “suitable seating” for some employees.  Not surprisingly, many became aware of this provision through the great many class action lawsuits filed by plaintiffs’ counsel who also just discovered the provision.  The law on this issue is scant.  However, at least two pending cases should clarify whether and when employers must provide seats – a case against Bank of America that is currently before the Ninth Circuit Court of ...