City of Seattle raised the minimum wage to $15 per hour in stages according to two schedules-one for businesses with 500 or more employees that reached $15 by January 1, 2017 and the second for businesses with fewer than 500 employees that did not reach $14 until January 1, 2021. The City classified franchisees associated with a franchisor and/or network of franchisees employing over 500 employees nationwide as businesses with 500 or more employees, regardless of the number of persons employed by the particular franchisee or the number of persons employed in Seattle. District Court properly denied the franchisee association's motion for preliminary injunction based on constitutional and public interest grounds. Int'l Franchise Ass'n, Inc. v. City of Seattle, 2015 U.S. App. LEXIS 16963 (9th Cir. Sept. 25, 2015).
Note: We analyze cases to learn rules the courts will follow or disappoint us if they don't. Rules that the courts follow allow us to behave and provide explanations they accept. But competent advocates may limit the rules to the facts of the case where they are discussed, or expand rules by showing that differences in other cases are irrelevant.