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The Committee follows and develops content for AHLA members on issues related to healthcare reimbursement and coverage, including Medicare and other government payer laws, regulations, and instructions, as well as issues related to health care organizational accreditation such as the Joint Commission and other accrediting entity standards. Jeanne has been in leadership within AHLA for the past nine years and a member of AHLA for 27 years. The Committee leadership is comprised of a Chair, five Vice Chairs, and two associated Affinity Groups.

Apple has made a deal for a podcast series about entertainers Siegfried & Roy with Emmy Award-winning filmmaker Steven Leckart and Will Malnati from podcast company At Will Media as executive producers. The series will be launched by Apple TV+ via its podcast platform and marks the first major show on Apple without an immediate television companion.

At Will Media was represented by Oren Rosenbaum at UTA and Weintraub Attorney Shaun Gordon.

Read the full article on Deadline.

Weintraub Tobin joins Matt Sugarman in congratulating his clients recently announced as Hugo Award Finalists:

• Best Young Adult Book: Naomi Novik
• Best Novel: Tamsyn Muir
• Best Novel: Mary Robinette Kowal
• Best Novella: P. Djèlí Clark
• Best Series: John Scalzi
• Best Series: Mary Robinette Kowal
• Best Dramatic Presentation Short Form: Noelle Stevenson
• Best Dramatic Presentation Short Form: James S.A. Corey

Voting will be open from late April until November 19, 2021, and winners will be announced at a ceremony at DisCon III, which will be held December 15-19, 2021 in Washington, DC.

To read the announcement with the full finalist list, please click here.

In an “Order, Decision and Award” dated February 10, 2021, Weintraub attorney Shauna Correia obtained a defense verdict on behalf of a private school in a Complaint made before the California Labor Commissioner. 

For teachers at the private school, the school typically observes a July 1 to June 30 school year; teachers are paid a salary spread over 12 months, and the month of July is typically time off.  For this reason, annual raises are often, but not always, made effective August 1, through the end of the school year.

A teacher at a private school quit her job with three days’ notice, effective after the last day of summer classes, June 28, 2019. The employer, our client, paid the teacher’s full salary through the last day worked, on the last day of work.  The employee then filed a claim before California Labor Commissioner for lost wages, wage statement violations, and late payment penalties, asserting that she was entitled to be paid to the end of July, even though she did not perform work in July. The employee claimed that the school year term was July 30 to August 1 because her “annual” salary was effective as of August 1, and pointed to language in a prior year’s written contract.  On behalf of the school, Shauna argued that the teacher was not on a written contract for the 2018-2019 school year – her employment was “at will” for the 2018-2019 school year, but, even if the Labor Commissioner deemed her previous school year contract to govern, there was no ambiguity in the agreement – the effective start and end dates were July 1 and June 30, not August 1 and July 30, separate from and irrespective of when a salary increase took effect.  Shauna also presented wage records demonstrating that the teacher was paid out for all hours worked for the entire duration of her employment. The Labor Commissioner decided in favor of the school, and decreed that the former employee take nothing.

Cases like these highlight the importance of clear language in employee offer letters, contracts and handbooks that is consistent with employers’ actual practices.

Tinkercast, a company co-founded by Guy Raz, host of NPR’s How I Built This, has struck a partnership with Sony Music Entertainment to develop a slate of shows. Raz founded Tinkercast with Mindy Thomas, host of SiriusXM’s Absolutely Mindy Show, and Meredith Halpern-Ranzer. The deal also includes the existing kid’s podcast Wow In The World, a series that shares stories about science, technology, and new discoveries which recently reached over 100M downloads. Shaun Gordon represented Tinkercast in the deal.

Read more about the deal on Deadline, here.

Rebekah Weatherspoon has struck a deal to have her romance book trilogy to be developed for television. The first book, A Cowboy to Remember, is now in development as a pilot and will be written and executive produced by Valerie C. Woods.

The trilogy is about a woman who has an accident and loses her memory but gets a second chance at love with an old childhood friend. It is described as a “modern-day happily ever after,” story.

Weatherspoon has authored over 20 romance novels and is represented by Weintraub Tobin’s Matt Sugarman.

To read the full Hollywood Reporter article, click here.

In September 2020, Weintraub attorney Shauna Correia obtained a judgment in favor of our client from the California Superior Court, County of Alameda.  The client is a limited liability company that owns, and desires to sell, more than 150 acres of prime real estate.  An adverse party sought to interfere with a proposed sale to a third party developer, claiming entitlement to a significant percentage of the sales price upon sale of the property, a right of first refusal to purchase the property, and a right to occupy a home on the land if the land is developed. The adverse party argued that he had an alleged contract with the owner’s predecessor (a family member) and/or equitable rights, in exchange for work performed by the adverse party prior to the predecessor owner’s death.  The potential purchaser requested that the owner remove the cloud on title and take all necessary steps to ensure the dispute would not hinder the sale. After the adverse party rebuffed all efforts to resolve the matter privately, Shauna brought suit, seeking to quiet title to the property and declaratory relief declaring the alleged contract or other rights and entitlements unenforceable as against the current owner and/or the land.  The Court granted our client the requested judgment on all counts, after a contested evidentiary hearing, removing a major impediment to our client’s ability to sell the land. (Party names not used to protect client privacy).

Weintraub attorney David A. Diepenbrock recently helped persuade the State Mining and Geology Board to rescind one of the largest fines it had ever imposed under the Surface Mining and Reclamation Act of 1975 (“SMARA”), totaling over $11,000,000. The Board purported to impose the fine for, among things, mining without an approved reclamation plan or a reclamation bond. In doing so, the Board ignored the validity of a reclamation plan a quorum of its membership, convened as its Surface Mining Standards Committee, had approved, as well as the reclamation bond the full Board had approved and its staff had received. After receiving overwhelming evidence establishing that the mine had been reclaimed in accordance with SMARA, the Board rescinded the $11,000,000 penalty and returned the operator’s reclamation bond. The Board also paid Weintraub’s client $200,000 to settle the civil rights claims he brought against two Board employees for imposing the $11,000,000 penalty upon him without first giving him notice and an opportunity to be heard. The settlement resolved multiple lawsuits, pending in both state and federal court, and was achieved while Weintraub’s motion for summary judgment was also pending.