New COVID-19 Laws for Employers
Today, governor Newsom signed two new bills into law that affects employers in California.New Workers Compensation Benefits Effective immediately, SB1159 includes illness or death resulting from COVID-19 as part of the workers compensation law. For the employee to be eligible for workers compensation benefits due to COVID-19, the following circumstances must be present:1. The employer has five or more employees; 2. The employee has tested positive within 14 days after performing working at the employee’s place of employment at the employer’s direction; 3. That date of performing work must be on or after July 6, 2020; and4. The positive test occurred during a period of an outbreak at the employee’s place of employment (excludes working from home).If both of those circumstances are met, the employee is presumed to have contracted…
New Exemptions to AB 5
Last week, the Governor signed into law AB 2257, which adds new exemptions to AB 5 (the law that uses the ABC test to classify most workers as employees with limited exceptions). This law took effect immediately. The new exemptions include: • Videographers • Photo Editors • Digital Content Aggregators • Translators • Copy Editors • Illustrators • Content Contributors • Producers • Narrators • Cartographers • Specialized Performer hired by a performing arts company to teach a class for no more than 1 week • Appraisers • Home Inspectors • 2 sole proprietors or individuals acting through a business entity, if it is a single engagement event • The following professions in the music industry (excluding film and television production crews): o Recording artists o Songwriters, lyricists, composers and…
Pandemic Update for San Diego County Businesses
The entire BMBR team hopes this message finds you, your families and your staff safe and healthy in these continually trying times. Last Week, Dr. Wooten, San Diego County’s Public Health Officer, amended the Health Order with new specific provisions pertaining to all San Diego County businesses. Effective July 30, 2020, all businesses (regardless of size) must take the following actions with respect to COVID-19 in the workplace: 1. If the employer becomes aware that an employee is diagnosed with COVID-19 (regardless of the source of infection), the employer must promptly notify the County Department of Public Health with the employee’s name, date of birth and contact information. 2. If the employer becomes aware that an employee is diagnosed with COVID-19 (regardless of the source of infection), the employer must…
New Year Legal Check-List: 2020
NEW YEAR THOUGHTS: We would like to express our thanks to our many clients, colleagues and friends who helped to make 2019 a terrific year. We would also like to extend our best wishes to our readers for a happy, healthy & prosperous 2020! We do what we do because we like it and because we want to make a difference. But we could not do it without all of you. NEW YEAR LEGAL CHECK-UP: With the new year upon us, the following is a list of ten suggestions for starting it off right by putting some of your professional and business affairs in order. Not all suggestions may be applicable to all readers, but they are designed to provide a framework for planning ahead. Make your own additions to…
What is “IP”?
People often come to us knowing they want to protect something of theirs, but they are not quite sure what it is. Sometimes they will say: "I want to patent my idea". Or…. "I want to trademark the title of my book". However they say it, what they are trying to say is: "I have an idea or something I created that I want to protect". At the end of the day, we know that there is some form of intellectual property (“IP”) protection that can help them. Intellectual property law has been described as the law pertaining to products of the intellect such as inventions (patents), creative content (copyrights), brand names (trademarks), and secret formulas and processes (trade secrets). Essentially there are four basic intellectual property tools: A patent…