Jeffrey D. Wohl

Since he tried and won for client Kmart the first employees' suitable seating class action to proceed to trial, Wohl has watched the law develop further until the issue reached the state Supreme Court, which issued its opinion this year. He said the justices in deciding Kilby v. CVS Pharmacy Inc., S215614, adopted an approach very similar to that taken by U.S. District Judge William H. Alsup in his Kmart case, Garvey v. Kmart Corp., 11-cv-2575 (N.D. Cal., filed May 27, 2011)

"The Supreme Court decision looked at a host of issues to see whether a seat could be provided," Wohl said, "and that's how I advise clients on what to do. Does the employer have a reasonable business judgment that the nature of the work requires the employee to stand, to project high energy and a can-do attitude of flexibility and efficiency?"

He said he has two suitable seating cases in the pipeline set for trial later this year and early in 2017. "We hope to establish that in the case of a major national retailer, the nature of cashiers' job duties and the layout of the check stands weigh heavily in favor of employees' standing," he said, declining at present to name the clients.

For client Amgen Inc., Wohl fought off claims that a named plaintiff and hundreds of other senior associate scientists were misclassified as exempt. "I led the Paul Hastings team in persuading the state court judge to deny certification of the claim — by establishing through dozens of declarations from potential class members and other evidence — that the job differs dramatically from employee to employee and that their duties are overwhelmingly exempt. We also won our motion to deny representative status of the plaintiff's related claim under the state's Private Attorney General Act." He said that the matter has now been stripped down to a single plaintiff case set for trial in October. Zhang v. Amgen Inc., 56-2012-00420162 (Ventura Super. Ct., filed June 29, 2012)

Wohl also serves as general counsel, chief ethics officer and board member of United Way of the Bay Area, which recently merged with United Way Silicon Valley to form a key agency fighting poverty in the region. And he provides pro bono services to The Bridge School and The Avalon Academy, schools that serve children with special needs, and the Vincent Academy, a nonprofit charter school serving children in Oakland regardless of economic circumstance.

— John Roemer