The Health Law Ticker

In anticipation of its November Board meeting this past week, the Medical Board released its Medical Board Staff Report along with a long-awaited draft of the enabling regulations for its Physician Health and Wellness Program.

While the re-establishment of a Physician Health and Wellness Program is a positive development, the new Program is structured in a way which fails to encourage physicians with substance abuse problems to enter the Program voluntarily at an early stage of their addiction ...

In a decision that facilitates flexible staffing practices for healthcare employers, the California Supreme Court recently held that healthcare workers can legally waive a second meal period when they work shifts longer than 12 hours. Gerard v. Orange Coast Mem'l Med. Ctr., 430 P.3d 1226 (Cal. 2018). The high court’s decision finally and conclusively resolves a contentious and technical dispute over labor enactments that had been the subject of several prior appellate rulings. See our prior discussion re Gerard II here.

Plaintiff healthcare workers alleged that their ...

In a rare move, the California Court of Appeal reversed itself and validated a California hospital’s policy of allowing healthcare workers to waive an otherwise mandatory second meal period on shifts longer than 12 hours.  In reversing itself, the California Court of Appeal in Gerard v. Orange Coast Memorial Medical Center (Gerard II) held that its previous decision in Gerard v. Orange Coast Memorial Medical Center (Gerard I), partially invalidating healthcare meal waivers, was incorrect.

California Labor Code section 512(a) requires that two meal periods be provided for any ...