Recent decisions from California courts remind us that California’s employee protections apply in this work-from-home era we’ve found ourselves in since Covid.
When California issued its March 19, 2020 stay-at-home order due to the Covid-19 pandemic, IBM Corporation instructed its employees, including Paul Thai, to work from home. In order to accomplish their work duties, Mr. Thai and his co-workers needed internet access, telephone service, a telephone headset, and a computer and accessories, all of which they personally paid for themselves.
Under California Labor Code Section 2802, employers are required to reimburse employees for all necessary expenditures…incurred by the employee in direct consequence “of the discharge of his or her duties.” But IBM refused to pay employees for their work-from-home expenses, arguing that these were the result of the California government’s stay-at-home order rather than anything done or decided directly by IBM.
In Thai v. IBM Corp., the Court of Appeal flatly rejected IBM’s argument, explaining that there is no requirement in the statutory language to prove that an employer had “directly caused” the job expenses at issue. “Instead, the plain language of section 2802(a) flatly requires the employer to reimburse an employee for all expenses that are a ‘direct consequence of the discharge of [the employee’s] duties.’” The Court emphasized that the law requires reimbursement for “expenses that are the ‘direct consequence of the discharge of [an employee’s] duties,’ not to expenses that are ‘directly caused by the employer.’”
The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California similarly ruled in the case of Williams v. Amazon.com Services, LLC, where Amazon had likewise argued that work-from-home expenses incurred during the Covid pandemic “were the result of government stay-at-home orders, not any action by Amazon.” The federal court explained that “even if true, that does not absolve Amazon of liability. What matters is whether [the plaintiff] incurred those expenses ‘in direct consequence of the discharge of his or her duties…’”
The Court noted that the fact that “Amazon expected [the plaintiff] to continue to work from home after the stay-at-home orders were imposed” was enough to trigger the requirement that employees be reimbursed for their work-from-home expenses.
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The Law Offices of C. Joe Sayas, Jr. welcomes inquiries about this topic. All inquiries are confidential and at no cost. You can contact the office at (818) 291-0088 or visit www.joesayaslaw.com. [For more than 25 years, C. Joe Sayas, Jr., Esq. successfully recovered wages and other monetary damages for thousands of employees and consumers. He was named Top Labor & Employment Attorney in California by the Daily Journal, selected as Super Lawyer by the Los Angeles Magazine for 12 years, and is a past Presidential Awardee for Outstanding Filipino Overseas.]
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