Best Best & Krieger News Feed

California Special Districts Association

10 Oct 2016 00:00:00 -0800

Join Best Best & Krieger LLP at the 2016 California Special Districts Association Annual Conference in San Diego, Calif.

BB&K Speakers:

Kelly Salt
"Come Hell or High Water: Funding Conservation, Flood Control, and Stormwater"
This presentation will address potential solutions to structuring tiered water rates in light of recent court decisions; and options for funding discounts for low income water, sewer, and solid waste service customers, and stormwater and flood control services.
Tuesday, Oct. 11
2 – 3:15 p.m.

Isabel Safie and Katrina Veldkamp
"Navigating the CalPERS Audit"
This presentation will discuss the most common compliance issues that lead to an audit finding and how an agency can address those issues to minimize the impact of an audit. In addition, we’ll discuss the risk factors that make an agency more likely than not to be selected for a CalPERS audit. Finally, we’ll walk you through the audit process and discuss the purpose and target of each phase of an audit.
Wednesday, Oct. 12
2:15 – 3:30 p.m.

Michelle Ouellette and Jennifer Lynch
"CEQA: What Special Districts Need to Know in 2016 and Beyond"
Special district actions must comply with fast-changing CEQA law. This panel addresses recent legislation and litigation, and will touch upon GHGs, AB 52, special events, water issues, and much more.
Thursday, Oct. 13
8:30 - 10 a.m.

When
Monday, Oct. 10 - Wednesday, Oct. 13

Where
San Diego Hotel and Marina
1380 Harbor Island Dr.
San Diego, CA 92101

For more information or to register, click here.

20 BB&K Attorneys Make Best Lawyers in America 2017 List

15 Aug 2016 00:00:00 -0800

For Immediate Release: August 15, 2016
Media Contact: Denise Nix • 213.787.2552 • denise.nix@bbklaw.com

RIVERSIDE, Calif. -- Best Best & Krieger LLP congratulates the 20 attorneys who were selected by their peers for inclusion on The Best Lawyers in America© 2017 list. In addition, Partner Edward J. Quinn, Jr. and Of Counsel Joseph Coomes are being recognized as Lawyers of the Year for their contributions to the legal industry, and their professional achievements. This is the second year in a row that Joe has earned this prestigious honor.

Since it was first published in 1983, Best Lawyers® has become universally regarded as the definitive guide to legal excellence. Best Lawyers lists are compiled based on an exhaustive peer-review evaluation. For the 2017 edition, more than 83,000 leading attorneys globally were eligible to vote, and 7.3 million votes were analyzed. Lawyers are not required or allowed to pay a fee to be listed; therefore inclusion in Best Lawyers is considered a singular honor. To learn more about Best Lawyers, click here.

Below are the BB&K attorneys included on The Best Lawyers list, by office, along with the practice areas they were recognized for:

Irvine

Sonia R. Carvalho, Municipal Law

Los Angeles

Eric L. Garner, Litigation – Environmental and Water Law

Ontario

John E. Brown, Municipal Law
Stephen P. Deitsch, Land Use and Zoning Law and Municipal Law

Riverside

Arthur L. Littleworth, Energy Law, Environmental Law, Litigation – Environmental, Natural Resources Law and Water Law
Michelle Ouellette, Energy Law, Environmental Law, Litigation – Environmental and Natural Resources Law
George M. Reyes, Corporate Law

Sacramento

Joseph E. Coomes, Jr., Land Use and Zoning Law and Municipal Law
T. Brent Hawkins, Municipal Law
Gary F. Loveridge, Health Care Law
Edward J. Quinn, Jr., Land Use and Zoning Law and Municipal Law
Ann Taylor Schwing, Appellate Practice
Harriet A. Steiner, Litigation – Municipal and Municipal Law
Iris P. Yang, Land Use and Zoning Law, Litigation – Municipal and Municipal Law

San Diego

Robert J. Hanna, Commercial Litigation
Shawn D. Hagerty, Land Use and Zoning Law
Arlene P. Prater, Employment Law - Management
Gary Schons, Ethics and Professional Responsibility Law

Walnut Creek

Gene Tanaka, Litigation - Environmental
Roderick E. Walston, Natural Resources Law and Water Law

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Best Best & Krieger LLP is a national law firm that focuses on environmental, business, education, municipal and telecommunications law for public agency and private clients. With 200 attorneys, the law firm has nine offices nationwide, including Los Angeles, Sacramento, San Diego and Washington, D.C. For more information, visit www.bbklaw.com or follow @BBKlaw on Twitter.

Sacramento Magazine Recognizes BB&K Partners

03 Aug 2016 00:00:00 -0800

For Immediate Release: August 3, 2016
Media Contact: Denise Nix • 213.787.2552 • denise.nix@bbklaw.com

SACRAMENTO – Congratulations to the five Best Best & Krieger LLP partners who were selected by their peers for inclusion on the 2016 Sacramento Magazine Top Lawyers list. The annual list, published in the magazine’s August edition, is based on a survey that was open to all licensed attorneys practicing in Sacramento. The attorneys in 56 practice areas who received the highest number of votes are listed.

The BB&K attorneys appearing on the 2016 Sacramento Magazine Top Lawyer list are:

Edward Quinn, Land Use/Zoning
Cathy Salenko, Nonprofit Organizations
Harriet Steiner, State, Local & Municipal
Kara Ueda, State, Local & Municipal
Iris Yang, State, Local & Municipal

To see the full Top Lawyers list, click here.

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Best Best & Krieger LLP is a national law firm that focuses on environmental, business, education, municipal and telecommunications law for public agency and private clients. With 200 attorneys, the law firm has nine offices nationwide, including Los Angeles, Sacramento, San Diego and Washington, D.C. For more information, visit www.bbklaw.com or follow @BBKlaw on Twitter.

Audit: Under the Microscope. Now What?

08 Jun 2016 00:00:00 -0800

Best Best & Krieger LLP Partner Jared Goldman will present "Audit: Under the Microscope. Now What?" during Infragard's "Health Care Cybersecurity Symposium."

Jared's presentation will discuss:

How do you respond when your organization receives a notice of an impending HIPAA audit from the Office of Civil Rights?
How do you survive the audit? Preparation is key and this symposium will prepare you and your organization for the auditor and their questions.
How to mobilize your team to pass scrutiny, from policy review and data collection to educating staff on relevant information and compliance measurement standards.

When
Wednesday, June 8
10 -11 a.m.

Where
University of Phoenix
Sacramento Valley Campus
2860 Gateway Oaks Dr.
Sacramento, CA

For more information or to register, click here.

Gov. Brown Appoints BB&K Partner to Key Position at California Dept. of Health Care Services

27 May 2016 00:00:00 -0800

Gov. Jerry Brown has appointed Best Best & Krieger LLP Partner Jared Goldman to serve as deputy director and chief counsel at the California Department of Health Care Services, as reported in the Imperial Valley News.

Jared has more than 15 years of experience as a health care attorney and has assisted a wide range of health care organizations, from billion dollar health and hospital systems to small start-ups. Jared also represented the receiver of the California prison medical system, the largest government organization placed under receivership in U.S. history.

BB&K Ranked No. 8 on Top Sacramento Law Firms List

26 Jan 2016 00:00:00 -0800

SACRAMENTO, Calif. - Best Best & Krieger LLP’s Sacramento Office is ranked No. 8 on the Sacramento Business Journal’s 2016 Top of the List: Law Firms. The publication ranks the local law firms by head count, listing the top 30. With 21 attorneys, BB&K’s Sacramento office moved up one position from 2015.

BB&K’s Sacramento attorneys serve a wide variety of clients, including the municipal, special districts, health care and agricultural industries. Their practice areas include Land Use & Zoning, Labor & Employment, Environmental & Natural Resources, Real Estate and Litigation.

“I am pleased to see how BB&K’s Sacramento office is growing not only by the numbers, but in its strength and depth of experience,” said Sacramento Managing Partner Edward J. Quinn.

In addition to the attorneys, BB&K last year added a lobbyist to the firm. Based in Sacramento, Director of Governmental Affairs Syrus Devers assists clients in navigating the complexities of California state government.

19 BB&K Attorneys Included on the 2016 Best Lawyers in America List

17 Aug 2015 00:00:00 -0800

RIVERSIDE, Calif. – Best Best & Krieger LLP congratulates the 19 attorneys who were selected by their peers for inclusion on The Best Lawyers in America© 2016 list. In addition, Partner Iris Yang and Of Counsel Joseph Coomes are being recognized as Lawyers of the Year for their contributions to the legal industry, and their professional achievements.

Since it was first published in 1983, Best Lawyers® has become universally regarded as the definitive guide to legal excellence. Best Lawyers lists are compiled based on an exhaustive peer-review evaluation. More than 79,000 leading attorneys globally are eligible to vote. For the 2016 Edition of The Best Lawyers in America, 6.7 million votes were analyzed, which resulted in more than 55,000 leading lawyers being included in the new edition. Lawyers are not required or allowed to pay a fee to be listed; therefore inclusion in Best Lawyers is considered a singular honor. To learn more about Best Lawyers, click here.

Below are the BB&K attorneys included on The Best Lawyers list, by office, along with the practice areas they were recognized for:

IRVINE

Sonia Carvalho, Municipal Law

LOS ANGELES

Eric Garner, Litigation – Environmental and Water Law

ONTARIO

John Brown, Municipal Law
Stephen Deitsch, Land Use & Zoning Law and Municipal Law

RIVERSIDE

Arthur Littleworth, Energy Law, Environmental Law, Litigation – Environmental, Natural Resources Law, Water Law
Michelle Ouellette, Energy Law, Environmental Law, Litigation – Environmental, Natural Resources Law
George Reyes, Corporate Law

SACRAMENTO

Joseph Coomes, Land Use & Zoning Law, Municipal Law
Brent Hawkins, Municipal Law
Gary Loveridge, Health Care Law
Edward Quinn, Land Use & Zoning Law, Municipal Law
Ann Schwing, Appellate Practice
Harriet Steiner, Litigation – Municipal, Municipal Law
Iris Yang, Land Use & Zoning Law, Litigation – Municipal, Municipal Law

SAN DIEGO

Shawn Hagerty, Land Use & Zoning Law
Robert Hanna, Commercial Litigation
Arlene Prater, Employment Law – Management

WALNUT CREEK

Gene Tanaka, Litigation – Environmental
Roderick Walston, Natural Resources Law and Water Law

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Nine BB&K Attorneys Appear on Sacramento Magazine’s 2015 Top Lawyers List

03 Aug 2015 00:00:00 -0800

We are pleased to announce that nine Best Best & Krieger LLP attorneys in the firm’s Sacramento office are included in Sacramento Magazine’s 2015 Top Lawyers List, which is published in the August 2015 edition. The list is the result of a survey by the magazine of lawyers in the Sacramento area, who were each invited to nominate three attorneys they believed are the best within a set list of 53 legal specialties. The BB&K attorneys selected by their peers are:

Joseph Comes, Land Use/Zoning
Jared Goldman, Health Care
Gary Loveridge, Health Care
Edward Quinn, Land Use/Zoning
Susan Schoenig, Employment & Labor
Stacey Sheston, Employment & Labor
Harriet Steiner, State, Local & Municipal
Kara Ueda, State, Local & Municipal
Iris Yang, State, Local & Municipal

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BEST IN LAW: Employers need to heed Obamacare Reporting Rules

22 Mar 2015 00:00:00 -0800

BY ISABEL SAFIE

Compliance with reporting obligations is always important for any employer, but the employer reporting requirements under the Affordable Care Act pack a significant penalty that makes compliance particularly important.

In fact, employers could be subject to penalties of up to $100 per return and $200 per employee for failing to timely file the required returns or furnish specified statements to employees.

Thus employers, whether private or governmental, will need to ensure that they have systems in place to collect certain data pertaining to health coverage provided in 2015 and later that will need to be reported to the IRS beginning in 2016.

The reports provide the IRS with information used to determine if employers are subject to penalties under the “play-or-pay” rule or whether individuals are subject to penalties under the individual mandate.

The reporting procedures will be similar to those used in connection with the W-2 Form used to report annual wages. Consistent with the requirements, Form 1095-B or 1095-C will need to be prepared for each employee covered by the reporting obligations and filed with the IRS using a transmittal Form 1094-B or 1094-C.

Certain small employers will need to use the “B series” forms to report minimum essential coverage, while the “C series” forms will be used by employers subject to the play-or-pay rule to provide the IRS with information to determine whether penalties are applicable.

Minimum Essential Coverage (Forms 1094-B and 1095-B)

Generally, “minimum essential coverage” includes an insured plan or coverage offered in the small or large group market or a self-insured group health plan. The good news for most small employers, generally those that are not subject to the play-or-pay rule, is that they will not be required to submit any of the returns discussed here. This is because the obligation to report data connected to minimum essential coverage falls on the insurance carrier rather than the employer, unless the coverage is provided on a self-insured basis.

Small employers that provide minimum essential coverage on a self-insured basis will be required to use the B-series forms to report certain employee information, including names, addresses and other key information.

In contrast, the insurance carrier is responsible for reporting insurance coverage provided by small employers on an insured basis. Thus, employers providing minimum essential coverage through an insurance carrier that assumes the risk of providing health coverage for insured events will have no filing obligation. Most small employers provide minimum essential coverage on an insured basis and, therefore, will not be subject to this filing requirement.

Reporting by Applicable Large Employers (Forms 1094-C and 1095-C)

All applicable large employers will be required to make an annual report to the IRS with respect to each full-time employee. The returns must contain various items of information including:

Whether the employer offers coverage to the employee
The employee’s share of the cost for self-only coverage
Number of full-time employees for each month
Name, address and Social Security number of each full-time employee

Applicable large employers with 50 to 99 full-time and full-time equivalent employees are required to file annual returns even if they are eligible for transition relief and exempt from the play-or-pay rule until 2016.

Filing Deadlines

Statements must be furnished to employees on or before Jan. 31 of the filing year. Copies of the information return filed with the IRS can be used for this purpose. The returns must be filed with the IRS on or before Feb. 28, or March 31 if filing electronically.

The information reporting requirements are lengthy and complex. Although reporting will not occur until early 2016, it is important for employers that will be responsible for these reporting obligations to take proactive action in 2015 to facilitate the reporting obligation. Therefore, it is important for employers to do the following:

Review and understand the reporting requirements.
Obtain copies of the reporting forms and identify the information that will need to be gathered and reported.
Identify the employees for whom reports will need to be submitted.
Designate a responsible person to gather the necessary information.
Calendar applicable deadlines to ensure that statements and returns are submitted timely.

*This article first appeared in The Press-Enterprise on March 22, 2015. Republished with permission.

Class Action Claims: Gluing Together Systemwide Judicial Relief

31 Oct 2014 00:00:00 -0800

The award of class action certification is often the gateway for obtaining lifesaving systemwide judicial relief in broken correctional health care systems. It also can be the beginning of a decades-long, burdensome and inefficient route to reform. No matter what your perspective may be, the approval of class certification is a pivotal moment when a few individuals’ claims are recognized as more than an aggregation of disparate grievances and are instead litigated as a common contention applicable to a broader group, requiring a common remedy.

In litigation brought under the Eighth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, the importance of class action certification can’t be overstated because, under the Prison Litigation Reform Act, judicial relief can “extend no further than necessary to correct the violation of the Federal right of a particular plaintiff or plaintiffs.” Naturally, the scope of a remedy tailored for all inmates in a correctional system will be vastly different from a remedy tailored for an individual inmate or a handful of inmates.

Recently, in Parsons v. Ryan, an ongoing case brought by Arizona inmates against senior officials in the Arizona Department of Corrections, the ADC officials asserted an argument, as characterized by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, that “Eighth Amendment claims can never be brought in the form of a class action.” This argument, if successful, would end impact litigation in the prisons as we know it. To understand the issue and the decision reached by the Ninth Circuit, some background about class actions is necessary.

Requirements for Class Certification

Class certification is governed by Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23. Under Rule 23(a), a party seeking certification of a class or subclass must satisfy four requirements:

The class must be so numerous that including all individual members as named plaintiffs is impracticable.
There must be questions of law or fact common to the class.
The claims or defenses of the representative parties must be typical of the claims or defenses of the class.
The representative parties must be able to fairly and adequately protect the interests of the class.

These requirements are often referred to, respectively, as “numerosity,” “commonality,” “typicality” and “adequacy of representation.”

The proposed class must also satisfy one of three subsections in Rule 23(b), which defines different types of classes. One of those subsections, Rule 23(b)(2), is typically used for the certification of civil rights actions. It requires that the party opposing the class (e.g., prison officials) acted or refused to act on grounds that apply generally to the class, so that judicial relief is appropriate for the class as a whole.

In 2011, the U.S. Supreme Court raised the bar for class certification in the widely publicized case of Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. v. Dukes. In Wal-Mart, the district court certified a class consisting of all of Wal-Mart’s 1.5 million female employees in a case claiming discriminatory employment practices. The employees did not allege that Wal-Mart maintained an express policy discriminating against women. Rather, the employees asserted that local managers’ discretion over pay and promotion was exercised disproportionately in favor of men, and Wal-Mart’s failure to limit its managers’ authority amounted to unlawful discrimination. In support of their claim, the employees presented statistical evidence of pay and promotion disparities, anecdotal evidence of discrimination in numerous cases and expert testimony of a corporate culture making stores vulnerable to gender bias.

Despite the evidence presented, the court found the award of class certification unsupported. The court acknowledged a general policy of allowing managerial discretion, which may have resulted in a number of independent discriminatory acts. But the court found that the employees failed to offer significant proof that Wal-Mart operated under a general policy of discrimination. Thus, the employees’ claims failed to show commonality or “some glue holding together” the local managers’ alleged discriminatory decisions. The court explained that to show commonality, plaintiffs must demonstrate that the class members have suffered the same injury—which means more than just suffering a violation of the same law. Plaintiffs’ claims must depend on a common contention capable of classwide resolution, which means that “determination of its truth or falsity will resolve an issue that is central to the validity of each one of the claims in one stroke.”

In the context of correctional health care litigation, Wal-Mart underscores that inmates cannot obtain class certification merely by showing widespread constitutional violations across the system. Some further commonality between the inmates’ claims must be shown, which brings us back to Parsons v. Ryan.

Statewide Policies: The ‘Glue’ of Commonality

The inmates in Parsons complained that numerous statewide policies and practices governing health care and conditions in isolation cells exposed them to a substantial risk of harm to which the ADC officials were indifferent. The inmates supported their complaint with detailed factual allegations of statewide policies and practices related to inadequate staffing, delays and denials of medical care, substandard dental care, failures to provide therapies for the mentally ill and detention of inmates in isolation for months or years without outdoor exercise or meaningful interaction with others. The district court granted the inmates motion for class certification, specifying a class of “[a]ll prisoners who are now, or will in the future be, subject to the medical, mental health, and dental care policies and procedures of the ADC.” It also certified a subclass of “[a]ll prisoners who are now, or will in the future be, subjected by the ADC to isolation, defined as confinement in a cell for 22 hours or more each day or confinement in [certain housing unit].”

The ADC officials appealed from the district court’s award of class action certification, principally arguing that the district court erred in concluding that the inmates possessed commonality. Citing the Supreme Court’s decision in Wal-Mart, the ADC officials asserted “Eighth Amendment health care and conditions-of-confinement claims are inherently case specific and turn on many individual inquiries. That fact is an insurmountable hurdle for a commonality finding because Wal-Mart instructs that dissimilarities between class members ‘impede generation of common answers.’” Said another way, the ADC officials argued that the inmates failed to satisfy the commonality requirement because a systemic constitutional violation of the sort alleged by the inmates is merely a collection of individual constitutional violations, each of which depends on the particular facts and circumstances of each case.

The Ninth Circuit rejected the ADC officials’ broad attack on inmates’ ability to bring class actions. It distinguished claims alleging deficient care provided on previous occasions, or to particular inmates, from the kind of claim asserted by the inmates in Parsons, in which the inmates made a future-oriented claim based on systemwide deficiencies. Specifically, the inmates complained that all inmates in ADC custody are exposed to the same injury—a substantial present and future risk of serious harm—as a result of ADC policies and practices of statewide application.

The court pointed to 10 statewide ADC policies and practices, to which all ADC inmates are exposed, which the court considered the “glue” holding together the class. All members of the class, as explained by the court, are subject identically to those same policies and practices. Additionally, the constitutionality of each policy and practice (i.e., whether it creates a systemic, substantial risk of harm to which the defendants are deliberately indifferent) “can be answered in a single stroke.”

By way of example, the court discussed the inmates’ claim that the ADC officials maintain an unconstitutional policy and practice of severe understaffing across all ADC medical facilities. This allegation, according to the court, presented a question of law and fact common to all ADC inmates. Because the inmates alleged that every single inmate is placed at substantial risk of future harm due to the general unavailability of adequate care, the question of whether the ADC’s staffing policies pose a risk of serious harm to all ADC prisoners is a common contention answerable as to the entire class at the same time. An inmate-by-inmate inquiry is unnecessary. “Either ADC employs enough nurses and doctors to provide adequate care to all of its inmates or it does not ...”

While the Ninth Circuit’s decision affirming the continuing viability of inmate class actions is not precedential throughout the United States, similar post-Wal-Mart decisions have been reached in lower courts in several states. Greater scrutiny of class claims can be expected. But it seems likely that class actions in correctional health care litigation will not come unglued.

Click here to see a .pdf of the article.