Orange County Litigation Law Blog

Unpaid internships are becoming more and more common in today's economy. Many California students take unpaid internships in an effort to obtain a paying job following college. These California students may be interested to know that employers offering unpaid internships are held to particular standards by the Department of Labor to ensure that unpaid employment opportunities are legal and that companies are not abusing their power in the use of unpaid employees.

An unpaid intern who worked for Harper's Bazaar has brought an employee-related lawsuit against Hearst Corporation, the publisher of the magazine. The intern claims her unpaid internship violated labor regulations and employment laws.

A California woman has filed a lawsuit to recover $2 million for being denied the chance to make history as the first female firefighter at a California fire department. The woman's employment law claim states that she not only endured workplace discrimination but also experienced wrongful termination. She claims that she was abruptly informed by her superiors that if she did not sign a letter of resignation from the fire department, she would be terminated.

In January 2010, the woman became the first female to be accepted into the firefighter program, at which point she began her stint as a probationary firefighter. In the almost two years since she was accepted into the program, she says that she passed every test and completed every task.

In the midst of the acquisition of New York Times Regional Media Group by Halifax Media Holdings, former New York Times employees were recently asked to sign non-compete agreements.

The non-compete agreements were posed as a condition for the former Times employees to be rehired by Halifax. The agreement states that employees may not "directly or indirectly... be employed by, perform services for, or hold any ownership interest in the business of operating a newspaper."

The California software company Symantec -- a maker of programs designed to identify and address privacy and performance issues on computers -- has been accused of violating California's unfair competition laws. The complaint seeks class-action status and says that Symantec is guilty of fraudulent inducement for trying to scare users into purchasing licenses for its dubiously protective software.

The man who filed the complaint hired a group of computer forensics experts who claim to have determined that trial versions of three of Symantec's products were designed to detect problems on computers, regardless if any existed.

The proposed construction of a California bullet train may face construction litigation from numerous groups in favor of in-depth environmental review of the project. Since 2009, California lawmakers have exempted 10 large-scale highway construction projects from environmental review, and last year a proposed $800 million football stadium in Los Angeles was put on the environmental fast track. But opponents of the largest of these construction projects -- the $98 billion bullet train -- are concerned that legislators will allow similar easements of the California Environmental Quality Act.

Since the start of the economic recession, lawmakers have allowed the sidestepping of certain aspects of the law in an effort to create thousands of construction jobs when people were badly in need of work.

A class-action lawsuit was recently filed against Sony in a court in California. The business litigation suit alleges that Sony's recent changes to its Playstation Network terms and conditions agreement are unfair because they will prevent network users from being able to pursue class-action lawsuits against Sony. The changes to the terms and conditions would require users to resolve disputes individually. The lawsuit alleges that the altered terms are unlawful because they would force users to waive their legal rights.

Sony made the changes to its user agreement in the wake of a recent Supreme Court decision that granted AT&T the right to include similar language in its user agreements. The AT&T language bars customers from launching class-action lawsuits, requiring them instead to solve their disagreements through arbitration proceedings. The recent changes in Sony's terms and conditions come after a previous lawsuit involving Playstation Network users. In that class-action case, network users complained because Sony dropped its support for the Linux operating system due to security concerns (hackers were utilizing the Linux feature to get around security barriers). The lawsuit relating to the discontinued Linux feature sought compensation for users in terms of the reduced value of the Playstation 3 product after the Linux removal, but a judge disagreed and later dismissed the action. Sony's recent changes to its user agreement would protect the company from this kind of class-action litigation in the future.

Many California residents are familiar with Hooters, the somewhat risqué bar and grill. Recent news concerning a class-action lawsuit filed against several Sacramento-area Hooters reports that both sides have reached a settlement. Of course, the entirety of the details concerning this business litigation were not released, but a few key points were revealed.

The lawsuit was initially filed in Sacramento Superior Court in March 2010. The case involved roughly 400 current and former Hooters employees. As part of the settlement, the company has agreed to relax certain uniform requirements, as well as guarantee break times for employees. In addition, the company agreed to pay employees for all Hooters-related work, provide lockers for employees and discontinue holding employees responsible when patrons fail to pay their bills. It was also announced that there would be some type of financial award in the class-action suit, though those details were not made fully available at the time of reports.

A California bar recently shut its doors as the result of a dispute between the bar owner and the owners of the property on which the business operates. Recently, the property owners filed an unlawful detainer lawsuit against the bar owner for unpaid rent. However, the bar owner has fired back in this tenants' rights dispute, alleging that the property owners failed to fix problems that substantially interfered with the business's use of the property.

An unlawful detainer is a type of lawsuit that refers to the continued possession of property following either the expiration or the termination of a lease. In this case, the owner of the bar allegedly owed $27,000 in unpaid rent to the property owners. He was subsequently ordered to pay $5,000 by mid-November to help cover the arrears, and then vacate the property on Nov. 30.