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Daniel Auten

Daniel Auten focuses his practice on complex product liability and mass tort litigation across a variety of industries.

Daniel represents clients in all stages of litigation, including discovery, witness preparation, Daubert and other dispositive motions, and witness examinations. He also advises a broad range of pharmaceutical and consumer products companies on product liability risks, including liability risks associated with the COVID-19 pandemic.

Daniel’s pro bono work includes the successful litigation to defend voting rights in the 2020 Presidential Election, securing asylum for a Salvadoran family threatened by MS-13, and negotiating the release of a mentally ill Virginia inmate into the custody of a mental hospital to receive urgently needed treatment.

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On November 30, 2020, emergency temporary COVID-19 workplace standards (“ETS”) issued by the California Division of Occupational Safety and Health (“Cal/OSHA”) took effect.  The ETS, which requires stringent workplace protocols intended to curb the spread of COVID-19, applies to all California employers, other than those subject to the Cal/OSHA Aerosol Transmissible Disease standard or those with only one employee at the workplace who does not have contact with others.  Under the ETS, employers must adopt and implement a comprehensive COVID-19 prevention program that includes identification and correction of COVID-19 risks, employee screening, investigation of cases, use of face coverings and other protective equipment, exclusion of exposed employees, and provision of free COVID-19 testing in certain circumstances, among other requirements.  The ETS also mandates testing and other action when there are multiple infections or an “outbreak” in a workplace.

Cal/OSHA promptly published a “Frequently Asked Questions” document (“FAQs”), a one-page summary of the ETS, and a Model Prevention Plan.  These documents shed additional light on the ETS and how it might be enforced.

Below is an overview of the key takeaways from the new ETS and subsequent Cal/OSHA publications.Continue Reading California Employers Must Comply with New Cal/OSHA COVID-19 Workplace Safety Standards