California employment case index

Summary judgment was improperly granted on the harassment and retaliation claims because triable issues of fact existed; the decision is notable for its strong criticism of the overuse and abuse of summary judgment in employment cases, for its treatment of the parties’ voluminous (and often meritless) evidentiary…

Reversing summary judgment, the Second District held that a lesbian mail-services employee raised triable issues on whether her FEHA administrative complaint was timely under the continuing-violation doctrine, even though her harasser stopped his explicit sexual-orientation slurs over a year before she filed. Applying Richards v. CH2M Hill, the court held the harasser's later, facially neutral work-sabotage campaign could be “similar in kind” to the slurs and that “permanence” turns on when the harassment stops, the employee resigns, or protest becomes futile — not on when the offensive words cease.

An employee fired under a no-fault attendance policy after a pancreatitis hospitalization sued under FEHA, CFRA, and Tameny. The Court of Appeal affirmed summary judgment on the FEHA disability claims — telling the employer he was “sick” or hospitalized did not give notice of a disability — but reversed on CFRA and the related Tameny claim, holding that while “calling in sick” alone is insufficient CFRA notice, hospital records showing inpatient care can constitute a request for CFRA-qualifying leave, shifting to the employer the burden to inquire and designate, and that causation does not require the decision-maker to know the absences were protected.

The California Supreme Court held that a CFRA employee’s simultaneous performance of a similar part-time job for another employer is strong but not conclusive evidence that she could perform the functions of her own full-time position. Because the phrase “functions of the position of that employee” means the job this employer assigned — not job functions “generally” — whether Lonicki had a serious health condition disabling her from her Sutter job remained a triable issue, and summary judgment was reversed. The Court separately held that an employer’s failure to invoke the second- and third-opinion dispute-resolution procedure does not estop it from litigating the medical merits.

Reversing summary judgment, the Court of Appeal held that an employee need not mention the CFRA to request protected medical leave — and that an employer that never gave notice of CFRA rights, rejected a chiropractor's certification out of hand, and refused to communicate with the employee's designated representatives could not defeat his interference, retaliation, disability discrimination, and wrongful termination claims as a matter of law.

The continuing-violation doctrine applies to FEHA claims: an employer’s related unlawful acts are treated as a single continuing violation — and the limitations period does not begin to run — so long as the conduct is sufficiently similar and frequent and has not yet acquired a degree of permanence that should put the…

A defendant moving for summary judgment bears the burden of showing that a cause of action has no merit — that one or more elements cannot be established or that there is a complete defense — by either conclusively negating an element or showing the plaintiff does not possess, and cannot reasonably obtain, evidence to…

An African-American electronic technician laid off in a budget cut applied for dozens of university jobs, was hired for none, and sued under the FEHA for retaliation. Affirming summary judgment, the Court of Appeal held that a string of rejections by different managers in unrelated departments is a series of isolated decisions, not a “continuing violation” — and that retaliatory remarks by HR staff who took no part in the hiring cannot establish causation, because every actual decisionmaker disclaimed knowledge of the protected grievance.

In Pang v. Beverly Hospital, Inc. (2000) 79 Cal.App.4th 986, the Court of Appeal drew the first California line around what it means to take family leave “to care for” a parent. A physical therapist fired after flying to New York to help her independent, 81-year-old mother pack and relocate to a one-level apartment was held not to be “caring for” her mother under the Family Rights Act: her participation had to be “warranted” during “a period of the treatment or supervision” of her mother, and packing boxes and directing movers was not. Affirming judgment on the pleadings, the court confirmed that courts — not the agency — bear ultimate responsibility for construing CalFRA.