New Laws 2024

Jan. 3, 2024

New Laws

The Legislature passed major changes to the workplace, mental health, housing and gun laws during 2023. Read about all 890 new laws in our latest annual supplement.

In This Issue:

AB 594: PAGA wage-and-hour update

Assembly Bill 594 adds and amends California Labor Code sections 180, 181, 182, 218, and 226.8 by authorizing “public prosecutors” to “independently” enforce the State’s wage-and-hour laws.

AB 288: The impact on California probate

The bill authorizes a new addition to the Probate Code, Section 5614.5, and could have a substantial impact on California estate planning and probate litigation.

AB 1305: Company websites must disclose carbon and climate impact

Companies that claim to reduce Greenhouse Gas emissions are now required to back-up those assertions, though a regulatory agency has not been designated to provide guidance on how to do so. Companies must read the statute and determine their own compliance obligations.

AB1307: Student party noise is not a CEQA impact

AB 1307 reestablished existing precedent that minor and intermittent noise nuisances, such as from unamplified human voices, be addressed through local nuisance ordinances and not via CEQA.

AB 1633: The Housing Accountability Act

AB 1633 allows applicants to sue local agencies that use CEQA delays to effectively disapprove, render financially infeasible, or downsize a project without having actually voted to do so.

SB 43: Revised definition now includes severe substance use disorders and expanded criteria

The bill expands the circumstances under which an individual is considered gravely disabled, and therefore may be involuntarily detained or conserved under the Lanterman-Petris-Short Act.

SB 54: Investment community's new DEI reporting requirements

Starting March 1, 2024, Venture Capital Companies must start reporting the diversity data of portfolio investments made during the prior year.

SB 235: New civil procedure law promotes transparency, aligns with federal law

The new law should increase the fairness of the civil discovery process by ensuring that all parties have early access to a complete set of information.

SB 553: New workplace violence prevention procedures

Employers must “establish, implement, and maintain, at all times in all work areas, an effective workplace violence prevention plan” for purposes of protecting employees from aggressive and violent behavior at the workplace.

SB 699 and AB 1076: California enacts further prohibitions on noncompete agreements

Senate Bill 699 prohibits employers from entering into noncompete agreements regardless of where and when the agreement was signed. And Assembly Bill 1076 expressly makes it unlawful for employers to enter into noncompete agreements and imposes steep fines and onerous notice requirements for violations.

SB 700: Prohibits employment discrimination for past cannabis use

Introduced by Sen. Steven Bradford, SB 700 adds to the existing Fair Employment and Housing Act (FEHA) prohibitions on discrimination on the basis of cannabis use.

SB 848: California implements leave for reproductive loss

Reproductive loss leave is a subset of California’s bereavement leave law and increases an employee’s leave entitlement for a reproductive loss event.

SB 365: Plaintiffs might get their day in court

SB 365 was designed to address this perceived injustice by providing courts with discretion to decide whether a case could proceed in trial court while an appeal was heard. Unlike the Coinbase holding, it would not automatically stay plaintiffs’ proceedings in trial court while appeals were pending.

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New Laws 2024

Jan. 3, 2024

In This Issue: