The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeal’s decision in Sandler v. Modernizing Medicine, Inc. holds that, in employment arbitration agreements governed by the Federal Arbitration Act (“FAA”), a properly drafted delegation clause (appointing an arbitrator, not a judge, to decide challenges to the agreement’s validity) will be upheld. The decision states that it is legal error to rely on California appellate decisions that apply state law to treat boilerplate severability clauses as sufficient to strip a clear delegation provision of its power.

In Sandler, the employee brought ...

California’s Fifth District Court of Appeal’s decision in Ayala‑Ventura v. Superior Court is the first to directly contrast with the Second District Court of Appeal’s opinion in Cook v. University of Southern California. While both cases focus on arbitration agreements of “infinite” duration, Ayala-Ventura stresses the importance of context, industry, and drafting choices, which can mean the difference between an enforceable agreement and one that is struck down as unconscionable.

In Ayala‑Ventura, a janitorial company, CCS Facility Services, required new ...

California employers are still adjusting to the post‑Adolph Private Attorneys General Act landscape, where individual claims can be compelled to arbitration while a representative PAGA claim proceeds in court. The Court of Appeal’s recent decision in Sorokunov v. NetApp, Inc. is important for its impact on how a defense win in individual arbitration may have a preclusive effect on a concurrent PAGA action pending in Superior Court.

The underlying dispute involved a high‑earning employee subject to a written incentive plan with a “windfall” provision that capped ...

The California Supreme Court’s decision in Fuentes v. Empire Nissan, Inc. resolves a growing split among the lower courts over whether tiny, hard‑to‑read print in an arbitration agreement counts as procedural unconscionability, substantive unconscionability, or both. For most of the last decade “fine‑print terms” and near‑illegible print in an arbitration agreements were treated as an indicator of substantive unfairness as well as procedural defects. More recently, the Fuentes Court of Appeal held that “tiny and unreadable print” was a problem only on ...

The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to take Salazar v. Paramount Global (cert. granted January 26, 2026) is more than a technical exercise in statutory interpretation. It is a live example of what happens when a targeted, decades-old privacy statute collides with modern web tracking and digital media business models.

At the center of the case is the Video Privacy Protection Act (“VPPA”), enacted in 1988 after the disclosure of Supreme Court nominee Robert Bork’s video rental history. The law was built for a Blockbuster-era world, but it has become newly relevant as plaintiffs ...

Enforcing employment arbitration agreements in California often feels like an uphill battle, but a recent decision from the Court of Appeal offers a useful tip for employers. In Sinedou S. Tuufuli v. West Coast Dental Administrative Services, LLC, the court confirmed that parties may elect to have their arbitration agreement governed by the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA) through clear contractual language, even where the underlying employment relationship is largely intrastate.

The dispute began when Sinedou Tuufuli, a former collector and customer service representative ...

The U.S. Supreme Court seldom takes up privacy cases, but the 2026 term includes two matters that could have profound implications for how businesses collect, retain, and disclose data. One addresses constitutional limits on modern surveillance, and the other reexamines the application of a legacy privacy statute that has become a focal point for litigation in the digital age.

Geolocation Data & the Fourth Amendment

In Chatrie v. United States, the Court will confront the rising use of geofence warrants, which are search warrants requiring companies to turn over location ...

The California Court of Appeal’s decision in LaCour v. Marshalls of CA, LLC is an important reminder that the enforceability of arbitration provisions in Private Attorneys General Act cases turns not only on federal preemption principles but, critically, on what the parties actually agreed to in their contracts and what was reasonably knowable at the time those contracts were drafted. In LaCour, a former loss prevention employee brought a single cause of action for civil penalties under PAGA on behalf of himself, other aggrieved employees, and the State of California, based on ...

All California employers should display the new minimum wage poster released by the California Department of Industrial Relations. The poster must be posted next to the Industrial Welfare Commission Wage Order that applies to the employer’s business and serves to notify all employees of the current minimum wage. Specifically, the poster states that the minimum wage for all workers, other than certain fast-food workers subject to Part 4.5.5 of Division 2 of the Labor Code and healthcare workers governed by Labor Code section 1182.14, is now $16.90 an hour. The increase is based on ...

Q:      I am a receiver for a Delaware LLC who’s business is operated in California and Nevada. A creditor of the LLC has contacted me demanding   that I turnover the proceeds of receivables I have collected, contending it has a perfected security interest in the receivables because it filed UCC-1 financing statements with the Secretaries of State in California and Nevada. The plaintiffs, who got me appointed, contend the creditor is unsecured because it never filed a financing statement in Delaware, despite the fact the LLC has no assets in Delaware and only operates in California and ...