Los Angeles Times subscribers may have seen articles co-written by Partner Zack Levine recently in the weekend Business Section. Zack will be co-writing articles with Donie Vanitzian on homeowner association law most weekends. Here are a few links to past articles:

Can board place association funds in risky investments?

"Organic" products are regulated by federal laws that require oversight by approved State level organizations. The federal Organic Foods Production Act of 1990 authorized the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) to operate a National Organic Program to set forth and monitor policies and procedures for certifying organic products and for determining standards for certified organic products in the United States. In doing so, the USDA created minimum standards for any "organic" products and set up a scheme of organizations to act as certifying agents to assist in the monitoring of the individuals and entities seeking organic certification. California has more certifying agents than any other State, including Puerto Rico and The Virgin Islands, with 28. The USDA regulates and monitors the State level certifying agents and the State level certifying agents regulate the businesses and individuals using organic products in commerce in their respective states.

 

The USDA's National Organic Program prohibits the use of certain "excluded methods" of producing food, including for example, genetic engineering. It further bans use of ionizing radiation or sewage sludge. Certified organic products may be made with some authorized synthetic products, but not all synthetic products. All certified organic products must meet these types of minimum standards and all product labels for certified organic products must be approved by a certifying agent.

 

If you meet the minimum standards and require certification to use the word "organic" on your products, you then need to meet other criteria to determine what, if anything, you are allowed to state. There are three possible levels of certification. The top level and most difficult to achieve is "100% Organic." As the designation suggests, all ingredients must be certified organic. Additionally any processing aids must be organic and the produce labels must state the name of the certifying agent (which puts some pressure on the certifying agents to take their jobs seriously as well). But, if you meet the standards for this level, you may include the USDA organic seal in its green/brown or black/white colors as allowed and/or 100 percent organic claim on the most visible part of your product's label.

 

"Organic" is the second tier and requires that all agricultural ingredients be certified organic with some exceptions, 95% of all ingredients be organic, and the product labels must state the name of the certifying agent. If you meet these standards, you may use the USDA organic seal and/or designate your product as "organic" on the most visible part of your product's label.

 

The last possible category a certified organic product may obtain is "Made With" organic ingredients. "Made with" products must contain at least 70% certified organic ingredients and state the name of the certifying agent on the label. These items may state "made with organic" in reference to up to three ingredients or ingredient categories. However, the product may NOT use the USDA organic seal and must designate all organic ingredients with an asterisk or other mark.

 

Products that require certification that have less than 70% organic ingredients may not be labeled organic or use the USDA organic seal. The only use of the word "organic" that may be allowed is to designate certain certified organic ingredients as such in the ingredients list on the product's label. Violations of any of the above rules may lead to various punishments including up to $11,000 per violation.

 

There are some exceptions that allow some proprietors to avoid having to go through the certification process including farms, handlers and processors whose gross sales are less than $5,000 a year; brokers, distributors, and traders; retail establishments; and a handful of others. The National Organic Program also has slightly different standards for some industries, such as alcohol and cosmetics. But overall, the industry is fairly highly regulated with specific standards with the above-described rules only describing a portion of the regulations.

Effective January 1, 2013, the California Labor Code now requires employers to create a request form for allow their employees to inspect and/or copy their personnel file. These files must be presented to the employee within 30 days of a request (subject to certain frequency limitations) and comes with a penalty of $750 for noncompliance.

In order to comply with current Labor Code requirements, employers must also keep personnel files for three (3) years following termination

Contact one of our employment attorneys today if you would like to discuss your obligations as an employer.

Arbitration is a non-judicial procedure for resolving disputes. The proceedings can be similar to civil litigation: complaints and briefs are filed, witnesses are interviewed, a hearing is conducted, and the arbitrator issues a final award that is binding on the parties. This process is usually expedited when compared to litigation but can be extended or modified by agreement of the parties.

In 1925 Congress enacted the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA), in part, to support the contractual election of parties to submit to arbitration rather than litigation in civil courts. As a general rule, agreements to arbitration are rigorously enforced by the courts. There are some exceptions to this rule, such as where an agreement to arbitrate is unconscionable, or an agreement between an employer and employee where the arbitration fees are not paid by the employer.

Recently at issue have been the inclusion of class action waivers in arbitration agreements. These agreements require each potential plaintiff to initiate their own arbitration, which can involve increased upfront costs over standard litigation and class action litigation. A group of plaintiffs raised the issue of these waivers against American Express and argued that the agreement that American Express mandates for all of its merchants makes pursuing complaints prohibitively expensive because of the inability to come together in a class. This argument was heard by the Supreme Court in July and, in a 5-3 decision, the waiver and arbitration agreement was upheld.

The American Express decision is the next in a string of cases where arbitration agreements of all kinds have been upheld in the face of various unconscionability arguments. The dissenting Justices in American Express did express concern over this trend and considered the possibility of extreme additions to arbitration agreements such as one-day statute of limitations, high filing fees, and prohibition on certain testimony, and the implications those additions would have on the resolution of a case. While such extremes may actually lead a court to invalidate an arbitration agreement as unconscionable, the door appears to be open at the moment to use expansive arbitration agreements and waivers as a way to limit unknowns in contract disputes.

 

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