Kate Gold

Kate Gold

LOS ANGELES - Kate Gold has been representing a wide variety of businesses in employment matters for more than 25 years. For much of this year, that has meant responding to two new laws, one federal and one state, intended to increase transparency.

California’s new Silenced No More Act, SB 331, took effect in January. It “puts more stringent rules in place for agreements with employees, [including] separation agreements,” Gold said.

An extension of a 2018 statute known as the STAND Act, the new law broadly prohibits nondisclosure clauses in settlement agreements from applying to disclosures of factual information describing workplace harassment or discrimination against any protected groups.

Separately, if an employment agreement contains a non-disparagement clause, it must include “specific language that allows the employee to discuss discrimination or harassment or any other conduct that they believe is unlawful,” she said.

As a result, Gold has been busy making sure her clients’ employment, separation and settlement agreements all comply with the new law.

Then in March, Congress passed an amendment to the Federal Arbitration Act called the Ending Forced Arbitration of Sexual Assault and Sexual Harassment Act of 2021. It says mandatory pre-dispute arbitration agreements can no longer be enforced against someone alleging sexual assault or harassment.

“That has caused a lot of employers and employment lawyers like me to look again at arbitration agreements,” Gold said. They also are wondering just how broad the new law’s impact will be. “It is not yet clear what happens when there is an arbitration agreement and there are multiple claims in a case and only one of them is a sexual harassment claim,” she added.

In addition to counseling her clients on the new laws and leading some confidential investigations, Gold also continues to be busy in the courts. In December, she won a summary judgment motion in a high-profile discrimination lawsuit on behalf of Billboard Magazine against an employee fired for sending sexually suggestive messages to a music artist. She said she was pleased to “have a public ruling that affirms the client’s conduct was lawful and not discriminatory.” Crowley v. Billboard Magazine, 1:19-cv-07571 (S.D. N.Y., filed Aug. 12, 2019).

-Don DeBenedictis