WCDefenseCA

Happy Monday, dear readers!  Your humble blogger hopes your summer is moving along swimmingly and that good weather and good times litter your every evening and weekend.

But, and it brings me no pleasure to do so, I have bad news to deliver!  California’s AB-5, which seeks to force every Californian into either being an employee or an employer, often against the will of all those involved, has claimed yet another victim.

Back in January of 2020 (remember those days, dear readers?  That’s when Corona was a beer and remote working was how quickly you paused the movie when someone called for a bathroom break) your humble blogger reported that a Los Angeles Judge ruled that AB-5 was pre-empted by federal law in so much as it sought to destroy the owner-operator truck drivers of California. 

Truck drivers protested AB-5 heavily when it was first passed into law, including by circling around down town San Francisco blaring their horns repeatedly.

Well, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals had lifted the injunction against enforcement of AB-5 as to truck drivers, and at the end of June the United States Supreme Court declined to hear the California Trucking Association’s appeal, meaning that the injunction is now lifted.

The final result for California?  It appears that truck drivers will likely be able to proceed as employees, including in term of workers’ compensation.  Those that previously engaged their services will have to act accordingly to the increased risk and raise their prices accordingly as well.

Just to put this all into context for my beloved readers: the Legislature in Sacramento was on a witch hunt against UBER and Lyft and decided to go on a thoughtless rampage, crushing various industries and people in the process.  Independent truck driver/operators were NOT victims of some evil plot to exploit them, and often found themselves willing to volunteer time to protest and money to litigate to protect their livelihoods.  It is entirely unclear who the Legislature sought to protect in having AB-5 expand to countless industries, including trucking!

Besides the damage done to independent truck drivers, the damage will be felt by the rest of us for many years to come.  Although your humble blogger loves shopping at Whole Foods, for example, I am well aware that there is no farm on the roof of every Whole Foods location: food is brought in, almost always by truck.  California’s AB-5 has made delivering products from farm to shelf MORE expensive, and that expense will be paid on every grocery store shelf. 

Your humble blogger wishes and hopes and prays that sanity will return to Sacramento.  Of course, your humble blogger has also seen Smokey and the Bandit II and is well aware what happens to those that use laws to incur the wrath of truck drivers…

Happy Friday, dear readers!

Well, we made it yet another week and the weekend is just around the corner.  So, I figured I’d take a “shot” at bringing you a relatively unorthodox blog post today, and it’s about guns!

Naturally, since June 24, 2022, when the United States Supreme Court issued its ruling overturning Roe v. Wade, almost all attention has been focused on that decision and understandably so.  Few issues in American political discourse trigger such strong emotions and such polarizing disagreements.  Further, the issue is rarely one that is hypothetical but has real world applications.  But for this blog post, I direct you to another decision: New York State Rifle & Pistol Association Inc. v. Bruen wherein the Supreme Court struck down New York’s law regarding concealed carry permits.  A law nearly identical to that of California.

Although the feelings regarding this decision are many and fractured, one area of near unanimous agreement is about the result – this ruling will increase the frequency of concealed carry permits issued to private citizens.  The California Attorney General issued OAG-2022-02 on June 24, 2022, directing that “[p]ermitting agencies may no longer require a demonstration of ‘good cause’ in order to obtain a concealed carry permit.”

As a result, are we going to see more firearms in the workplace?  May employers already have prohibition on bringing firearms to work, but some don’t or have no mechanism of enforcement given that the very nature of the issue is that it is concealed.

A reminder, dear readers, that Labor Code section 3208.3 has a lower standard for AOE/COE for psyche claims when the applicant sustains “direct exposure to a significant violent act” (from 51% to 35-40%).  In all likelihood, any violent act involving a gun is going to be considered a “significant violent act.”

Further, Labor Code section 4660.1 allows for increased permanent disability for a compensable consequence psyche claim where there is “exposure to a significant violent act within the meaning of Section 3208.3.”

In light of the high probability that a growing number of Californians will be carrying firearms on their person, employers may want to determine if the circumstances merit adoption of policy regarding firearms at work.  Being the cynic and devil’s advocate that he is, dear readers, your humble blogger can’t help but wonder if failure to proactively address the potential for firearms at work might lead to Serious and Willful Misconduct claims as well.

Now, all that being said, there are some advantages to having sane, trained, and law-abiding employees armed at work.  For example, in 2015 Syed Rizwan Farook and Tashfeen Malik allegedly carried out the San Bernardino massacre, murdering 14 and injuring some 22 co-workers in a horrific act of terrorism.  Not one of the victims was armed and all were rendered defenseless. Similar mass shootings in California have typically had a defenseless pool of victims.  But each employer will have to decide for itself, using its best knowledge of its employees and the dangers of the world, where the greater risk lies: in disgruntled employees and accidental shootings, or in intentional violence and no opportunity for mitigation. 

It is truly a sad thing that this is the calculus we are faced with, but face it with must.

So, on that cheerful note, your humble blogger wishes you a good weekend and hopes to see you back here early Monday morning!