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In California, most employee noncompetes are void, because the law broadly protects employee mobility. The California Supreme Court has made clear that employee noncompetes are invalid unless a specific statutory exception applies (for example, certain sale-of-business situations). Employers often relabel noncompete as “nonsolicitation” to make them sound safer. In California, that label does not guarantee...

California’s final-pay rules are strict. If you are fired/laid off, your employer must pay all wages due immediately on termination day. If you quit, your final wages are due on your last day if you gave at least 72 hours’ notice, or within 72 hours if you did not. “All wages” generally includes earned but...

Usually, no. California generally does not allow employers to take deductions from wages for things like cash shortages, breakage, or loss of company property when it happened because of mistake, accident, or simple negligence, since those losses are typically treated as the employer’s cost of doing business. In the real world, employers often try to...

If you’re a non-exempt employee, California generally requires employers to pay for all time worked, including “small” recurring tasks like after-hours messages, early-start work, or post-shift wrap-up work, especially when it’s a regular feature of the job. California courts have rejected a routine “it was only a few minutes” defense in many real workplace settings....

Remote work can trigger multiple layers of law at once, and the key question is usually where the work is physically performed. In most situations, remote employees are covered by federal law, plus the state and local (city/county) laws of the place they actually work, even if the employer is headquartered elsewhere. What this means...

Yes, you can still pursue your legal claims, because not every arbitration agreement is enforceable as written. Under California’s leading case, Armendariz, arbitration of statutory discrimination/retaliation claims is generally only enforced if the process is fair enough to let you truly vindicate your rights (neutral decisionmaker, adequate discovery, written award, full remedies, and no improper...