6 Tips on the New California Driving Ban on Handheld Cell Phones

Not so new, actually, as they were passed in late 2006, but the new prohibitions for driving while using a handheld cell phone in California take effect July 1, 2008.  Here’s the lowdown on the new California bans on using handheld cell phones while driving:

1)       It’s still OK to talk on the phone, but it must be handsfree to use it while driving.  And yes, holding the phone to dial is allowed.

2)      Amazingly, both text messaging and reviewing emails is not illegal per se.  Of course, to the extent you drive erratically or are involved in an accident, that could still result in citations and/or legal responsibility.  We expect this to be restricted or prohibited in the next 12 months.

3)       Any use of cell phones by those under 18 is banned, whether it is handheld or hands free.

4)       You may use a handheld phone for emergency purposes, but only to make emergency calls to a law enforcement agency, a medical provider, the fire department, or other emergency services agency.

5)       Commercial drivers are exempted from the law.

6)       Using a hand held device is considered a primary violation, so you may be stopped and cited just for this offense.  The prohibition on drivers under 18 using hands free devices is a secondary violation. 

One important legal aspect to take into account is that, while the fine and associated penalties are less than $100 for the first offense, the fact that it is a separate offense means that any negligent or reckless driving while using a handheld device resulting in, for example, a death could be more easily treated as manslaughter by a prosecutor.

You can find the full text of the new laws under California Vehicle Code (VC) §23123 and VC §23124.  If you are interested in other states’ requirements, there is a helpful link from the Insurance Instititute for Highway Safety here.

We have yet to see the new cell phone restrictions hit many companies’ personal vehicle use policies, but if you’d like to see some of them, you can find them under the Vehicles/Driving document type within the Labor & Employment Policies document category at http://www.realdealdocs.com/SearchDocument.aspx.

 

 

Updating your independent contractor agreements template

There is a very wide range of issues you can consider in determining how to structure and draft a consultant / independent contractor relationship.  I’ll be walking through some of these issues in a series of posts over the next several days, but they include:

1. Understand the key differences between independent contractor and employee status.  These include issues ranging from tax withholding responsibilities and worker’s compensation coverage to other general liability issues.
2. Reviewing the particular nuances of intellectual property ownership in an independent contractor relationship.
3. Covering the general contractual elements found in typical independent contractor agreements.

In our business, we like to keep these agreements relatively straightforward, and we rely on templates which cover the key issues.  That said, we’re sticklers in terms of IP assignment and the like, as many venture-backed businesses are.

If you are looking for some outstanding independent contractor agreement samples or templates, I’ve highlighted an excellent resource of documents that were drafted by some of the largest companies and law firms in the country. 

Writing Delaware employment agreements

I recently wrote about new resources for identifying California Employment Agreements to use in your business, or for drafting documents for your clients.  The rationale is clear - negotiating effective employment agreements that are applicable to your jurisdiction is essential to enforcing your rights appropriately.  Additionally, the ability to leverage legal agreements drafted by top law firms enables business owners and lawyers alike to find new ways of constructing deal terms or simply getting documents turned around more quickly.

This of course applies to many state jurisdictions within the United States, not the least of which is the ability to quickly find and browse across thousands of Delaware employment agreements.  These documents are particularly likely to have been drafted by top law firms, as large corporations tend to be disproportionately organized under Delaware law. 

If you need to find Delaware employment agreements using full text search criteria or other tools, such as limiting searches to particular industries, you can do that as well using these employment agreement search tools.

Yahoo’s severance plan - protecting your business or playing dirty?

On Monday, June 2, a Delaware judge unsealed redacted portions of Yahoo’s Change of Control Employee Severance Plan originally filed with the SEC in February. 

For background, the plan was originally enacted in the midst of the Microsoft efforts to acquire Yahoo, which have recently geared up again.  Release of the confidential items shows that the plan, which would have come into play in the event of a qualifying event such as an acquisition by Microsoft, would have added between $500 million to $2.4 billion in acquisition costs to Microsoft.

In defense of Yahoo executives, they laid out a number of rational objectives for enacting the plan, not the least of which is that it would keep large numbers of employees from bailing out at the first opportunity given all the uncertainty around the company’s future.  Shareholders, many of which wanted to increase shareholder value or find an exit due to Yahoo’s struggles over the past several years, have filed suit, alleging among other things that this was an attempt to thwart the acquisition, rather than just protect the company from losing critical employees. 

In balancing these competing interests, it will ultimately come down to how reasonable the plan is.  An easy way to see this is to compare the plan to other Change of Control Agreements and Employee Severance Plans.  You can find thousands of these at www.RealDealDocs.com.

So what do you think - a righteous and reasonable effort to prevent defections, or a nefarious scheme to deter Microsoft and maintain control of the company?