California employment case index

In Wards Cove Packing Co. v. Atonio (1989) 490 U.S. 642, the Supreme Court held that a disparate-impact plaintiff must identify the specific employment practice causing a statistical disparity and bears the burden of persuasion on business justification, with the employer carrying only a burden of production and the challenged practice needing only to serve legitimate goals — not to be “essential.” The Civil Rights Act of 1991 later superseded the burden-of-persuasion holding, restoring Griggs v. Duke Power Co.

A FEHA complainant need not prove that discriminatory animus was the sole motivation for an adverse action — but must still prove it was a determining factor. Affirming the Commission's finding that a Black employee was discharged for commute-cost reasons rather than race, the Sixth District clarified the causation standard that underlies CACI Nos. 2500 and 2507, even as it upheld the employer's legitimate-reason defense on the facts.

A disparate-impact plaintiff is relieved of proving discriminatory intent, but is not relieved of proving the discriminatory impact. Affirming summary judgment for the University, the First District held that the plaintiff offered no statistical or other evidence that a facially neutral practice fell more harshly on a protected group — the indispensable element of a disparate-impact theory (CACI No. 2502).

A facially neutral firefighter promotional exam that screened out Black candidates at well below four-fifths of the White rate, and that failed to test the job’s primary supervisory function, violated FEHA — though parallel federal litigation displaced the Commission’s remedy.

An exclusive all-male club is a covered FEHA employer, and its members’ preference for male staff is no bona fide occupational qualification. The Court of Appeal reaffirmed that the BFOQ defense is an extremely narrow exception that customer preference can never satisfy.

In Western Air Lines, Inc. v. Criswell (1985) 472 U.S. 400, the Supreme Court adopted the two-part age-BFOQ test for the Age Discrimination in Employment Act: the age limit must be reasonably necessary to the essence of the employer's business, and the employer must show either reasonable cause to believe that all or substantially all older workers cannot perform the job safely or that it is impossible or highly impractical to assess older employees individually. The Court rejected a deferential “rational basis” standard.

Punitive damages are recoverable under the FEHA in a court action for intentional employment discrimination; the statute’s remedial scheme does not limit a plaintiff to the relief the administrative agency could award, so the full range of tort-type remedies, including punitive damages, is available.

The Supreme Court held that an employer cannot use a racially balanced “bottom-line” workforce to defend a discriminatory pass/fail barrier that excludes individual employees. Title VII protects the person, not just the group.

Texas Department of Community Affairs v. BurdineAt step two of the McDonnell Douglas framework, the employer bears only a burden of production — to articulate a legitimate, nondiscriminatory reason. The ultimate burden of persuasion remains at all times with the plaintiff.Texas Department of Community Affairs v. Burdine (1981) 450 U.S. 248Parallel citations: 101 S.Ct. 1089; […]

Larry Hardison was fired when his Saturday Sabbath collided with a low-seniority shift at TWA's around-the-clock maintenance base. Reversing the Eighth Circuit, the Supreme Court held that Title VII does not require an employer to override a bona fide seniority system to accommodate an employee's religion, and that requiring an employer to bear more than a de minimis cost is an undue hardship. Justices Marshall and Brennan dissented. The de minimis standard was later clarified and raised by Groff v. DeJoy (2023).

In Teamsters v. United States (1977) 431 U.S. 324, the Supreme Court drew the foundational line between disparate-treatment and disparate-impact discrimination, explained the Government's pattern-or-practice burden to prove that discrimination was a company's “standard operating procedure,” shielded bona fide seniority systems under section 703(h), and recognized the “futile gesture” doctrine excusing non-applicants deterred from applying by a known discriminatory policy.

In McDonald v. Santa Fe Trail Transportation Co. (1976) 427 U.S. 273, two white employees were discharged for participating in the theft of antifreeze from a shipment in their employer's care, while a Black employee charged with the same misconduct was retained. The Supreme Court held — unanimously as to Title VII, and seven-to-two as to 42 U.S.C. § 1981 — that both statutes protect against racial discrimination directed at any race, including white persons. An employer “may justifiably refuse to rehire one who was engaged in unlawful, disruptive acts against it, but only if this criterion is applied alike to members of all races.” The judgment dismissing the complaint was reversed and the case remanded.

The Supreme Court held that back pay should normally be awarded to make Title VII victims whole — an employer’s good faith is no defense — and that job-validation studies must meet professional standards before discriminatory employment tests can stand.

Four women who paid into California’s employee-funded disability insurance program were denied benefits because their disabilities arose from pregnancy. Six Justices upheld the exclusion: the program’s risk selection was rational social-welfare line-drawing, and — in footnote 20, the most consequential footnote in pregnancy-discrimination law — the classification was not sex-based at all, because it divided “pregnant women and nonpregnant persons.” Congress answered with the Pregnancy Discrimination Act; California answered with the FEHA’s definition of sex, the PDLL, and Badih v. Myers; even the SDI statute now expressly covers pregnancy. Yet the constitutional holding stands, reaffirmed in Dobbs — a live obstacle for equal-protection claims, and a museum piece everywhere else.

Title VII disparate-treatment claims proceed under a three-step framework: (1) the plaintiff must establish a prima facie case of discrimination; (2) the burden of production then shifts to the employer to articulate a legitimate, nondiscriminatory reason for its action; and (3) the plaintiff must then have the…

Title VII prohibits employment practices that operate to exclude protected groups and are not demonstrably related to job performance, regardless of the employer’s intent (disparate-impact liability). If a neutral practice has a disparate impact on a protected class, the employer must show the practice is job-related…