California employment case index

A steelworker fired months after testifying in a coworker’s asbestos case revived his public-policy and FEHA disability claims: they required no CBA interpretation, his union could not waive his judicial forum, and coworker evidence that the termination-night incident was staged made pretext a jury question.

Affirming summary judgment for the employer, the Court of Appeal held in the published portion of this opinion that a finite leave of absence can be a reasonable accommodation under FEHA, “provided it is likely that at the end of the leave, the employee would be able to perform his or her duties.” On undisputed facts the employer had accommodated its injured meatcutter twice — sixteen months of leave (nearly double the CBA's nine) and an offer of a vacant part-time position — so it need not also furnish the hand brace and other measures the employee preferred. The interactive-process discussion has since been overtaken by the Legislature's addition of an independent interactive-process duty (Gov. Code, § 12940, subd. (n)).

Section 132a does not provide an exclusive remedy; an employee may pursue FEHA disability-discrimination and common-law wrongful-termination claims notwithstanding the availability of a section 132a remedy.

Good cause to terminate under an implied “good cause” contract means a reasoned, good-faith conclusion that the misconduct occurred, supported by substantial evidence gathered through an adequate investigation that gave the employee notice and a chance to respond — not the jury’s after-the-fact determination of…

Age discrimination in violation of the FEHA supports a common-law claim for wrongful discharge in violation of public policy. When a plaintiff relies on a statutory prohibition to support such a claim, the common-law claim is subject to the statute’s substantive limits (the nature and scope of the prohibition) but not…

In Mullins v. Rockwell International Corp. (1997) 15 Cal.4th 731, a long-tenured manager who resigned after a demotion and a steady erosion of his responsibilities sued for constructive discharge in contract; the trial court and Court of Appeal held his claims time-barred, running the limitations period from the date he learned of the adverse changes. A unanimous Supreme Court reversed. Extending its reasoning in Romano v. Rockwell, the court held that the limitations period for a contract action based on constructive discharge runs from the date of actual termination of employment — the resignation — not from the onset of, or the employee's knowledge of, the intolerable conditions. Because the breach alleged is termination without good cause, and an employee who continues to perform retains an election of remedies, the cause of action accrues only upon resignation. The court disapproved Regents of University of California v. Superior Court to the extent inconsistent.

Prilliman v. United Air Lines, Inc.An employer who knows of an employee’s disability has an affirmative duty to make known available, suitable job opportunities and to determine whether the employee is interested and qualified — not merely to wait for the employee to ask.Prilliman v. United Air Lines, Inc. (1997) 53 Cal.App.4th 935Parallel citation: 62 […]

Nine days after Fatmeh Badih told her employer — a physician with fewer than five employees — that she was pregnant, her last day was set; the DFEH would not even accept her complaint because the office was too small for the FEHA. Division One of the First District affirmed her wrongful-discharge verdict anyway, holding that pregnancy discrimination is a form of sex discrimination under article I, section 8 of the California Constitution, whose fundamental public policy against sex discrimination in employment binds every employer regardless of size. Jennings v. Marralle was distinguished, not disturbed: age has no constitutional anchor, but sex — and therefore pregnancy — does. Badih remains the pleading answer for pregnancy discharges at California's smallest workplaces.

To establish a constructive discharge, an employee must prove that the employer either intentionally created or knowingly permitted working conditions so intolerable or aggravated that a reasonable person in the employee’s position would have had no reasonable alternative but to resign; ordinary job dissatisfaction or…

General Dynamics Corp. v. Superior Court In-house counsel may sue for wrongful termination — both on an implied-in-fact contract theory and, within limits, a Tameny public-policy theory — even though a client may generally discharge its lawyer at will. General Dynamics Corp. v. Superior Court (1994) 7 Cal.4th 1164 Parallel citations: 876 P.2d 487; 32 […]

The discharge stated an actionable Tameny claim and was not preempted by the workers’-compensation law (id. at p. 1085). More durably, the court held that the public policy underpinning a Tameny claim must be “tethered to” specific constitutional or statutory provisions, not merely the court’s own notions of sound…

The FEHA does not displace other state-law remedies, including common-law claims, for employment discrimination; an employee need not exhaust FEHA’s administrative process before pursuing nonstatutory causes of action; and sex discrimination in employment may support a tort claim for wrongful discharge in…