California employment case index

Harris v. City of Santa Monica (2013) 56 Cal.4th 203 holds that FEHA discrimination must be a “substantial motivating factor,” and that an employer’s same-decision showing bars damages, backpay, and reinstatement but not declaratory/injunctive relief or attorney’s fees.

Comparator evidence is admissible in a FEHA case where the plaintiff and the comparator are similarly situated in all relevant respects — similar jobs and similar conduct. Affirming a plaintiff's verdict against San Francisco State University, the First District clarified how Reeves v. MV Transportation governs the admissibility, not merely the weight, of evidence that others outside the protected class were treated more favorably.

An employer's stereotyping of a long-tenured Filipino nurse over her accent and English skills was not a neutral performance concern but evidence of national-origin discrimination. The Third District reversed summary judgment for Dameron Hospital, holding that a jury could find the hospital's stated reasons pretextual and that accent-based bias falls squarely within FEHA's protection of national origin.

The Court of Appeal reinstated Ada Abed’s FEHA pregnancy claim, holding that a job application is not an element of a failure-to-hire claim. An employer who falsely tells a pregnant woman no position is open — and thereby stops her from applying — can be liable for pregnancy discrimination, even though she never applied.

In Simers v. Los Angeles Times Communications LLC (2018) 18 Cal.App.5th 1248, a celebrated sports columnist won a jury verdict on FEHA age and disability discrimination and constructive discharge, recovering more than $7 million. The trial court let the discrimination liability stand but granted JNOV on the constructive-discharge claim and ordered a new trial limited to damages. The Court of Appeal affirmed all of the orders. Even where age or disability is a substantial motivating reason for a demotion, an employee who resigns in response to standard disciplinary procedures has not suffered a constructive discharge absent “unusually aggravated” conditions or a “continuous pattern of mistreatment.” And because the noneconomic award could not be apportioned between the surviving discrimination theory and the vacated constructive-discharge theory, a new trial limited to damages — not liability — was the proper remedy.

A FEHA disparate-treatment verdict collapsed where the only proof of racial animus was the race of the officers’ shooting victim — not the officers themselves — and the City’s risk-management rationale stood unrebutted. The Court of Appeal reversed with directions to enter judgment for the City.

A gay executive's evidence that his sexual orientation was a substantial motivating factor in his termination was enough to revive his FEHA discrimination claim, even though his parallel retaliation theory failed. The Second District applied Harris v. City of Santa Monica's causation and same-decision framework (CACI Nos. 2500, 2505, 2512) to a sexual-orientation disparate-treatment case.

In Davis v. Farmers Ins. Exchange (2016) 245 Cal.App.4th 1302, the Court of Appeal held that the mixed-motive, same-decision framework adopted in Harris v. City of Santa Monica for FEHA disparate-treatment claims applies equally to a common law wrongful-termination-in-violation-of-public-policy claim grounded in the policy against age discrimination — even though the plaintiff pleaded no FEHA claim. Because the jury found age was a substantial motivating reason but that Farmers would have fired Davis anyway, the same-decision finding left no damages, no equitable relief, and no fees; the court nonetheless reversed a directed verdict on his wage claim, holding the employer bears the burden of proving paycheck deductions lawful.

A Black firefighter's discrimination verdict collapsed because he could not show the City's reasons were pretextual or marshal the statistical proof a disparate-impact theory requires, and the continuing-violation doctrine could not rescue time-barred claims. The Second District reversed with directions to enter judgment for the City, illustrating the demanding pretext and impact standards behind CACI Nos. 2502, 2505, and 2508.

Government Code section 12965(b) governs both fee and cost awards in FEHA actions and makes them discretionary under the asymmetric Christiansburg standard: a prevailing plaintiff ordinarily recovers fees and costs, but a prevailing defendant may recover them only if the action was objectively frivolous, unreasonable,…

UPS accommodated drivers hurt on the job, drivers with ADA disabilities, and drivers who lost their DOT certifications — but told pregnant driver Peggy Young she could not work under a 20-pound lifting restriction. The Supreme Court vacated summary judgment and built the governing framework for PDA accommodation claims: show the employer accommodated others similar in ability to work, and a jury may infer discrimination if the policies significantly burden pregnant workers and the employer’s reasons are not strong enough to justify it. In California, where the PDLL and FEHA impose affirmative accommodation duties, Young is the federal floor — essential in pure Title VII postures, rarely the lead theory at home.

In Cheal v. El Camino Hospital (2014) 223 Cal.App.4th 736, the Court of Appeal reversed summary judgment for the hospital in a FEHA age-discrimination suit, holding triable issues existed on whether the 61-year-old dietary technician performed satisfactorily and on discriminatory animus. Although “satisfactory performance” is ordinarily within the employer’s sole discretion, an employer cannot conclusively establish the governing standard merely by asserting the plaintiff fell short; the hospital’s own written policies anticipated and tolerated the errors charged, and the supervisor’s recorded admission that she favored younger workers was admissible against interest.

Reversing a $113,830 pregnancy-discrimination verdict against Lucasfilm, the First District held that a FEHA defendant is entitled, on request, to a “business judgment” jury instruction — the rule that an employer may act on a wrong, unwise, or mistaken but nondiscriminatory reason — and that an abstractly correct “no fetal-hazard defense” instruction untethered to any defense actually in the case was misleading error. The cumulative instructional errors required a retrial.

Nielsen fired Christine Earl, 59, for recording the wrong house address on a recruitment form, citing her history of policy violations. The Ninth Circuit reversed summary judgment on her FEHA age discrimination and wrongful termination claims: recruiters aged

The Supreme Court’s foundational “cat’s paw” decision: an employer is liable when a biased supervisor performs an act intended to cause an adverse employment action that is a proximate cause of the ultimate decision — even if the formal decisionmaker had no discriminatory animus. A decisionmaker’s “independent investigation” does not automatically break the causal chain, especially when it credits the biased actor’s report without independently confirming the action was justified.

The Third District affirmed summary adjudication against a pregnant executive assistant whose two-month tenure ended in resignation after a pointed email exchange about her maternity-leave dates, holding the conduct neither severe nor pervasive enough to be FEHA harassment and not an adverse employment action under Yanowitz. In a holding of lasting evidentiary importance, the court also held that emails Holmes sent her attorney on the company computer — after being warned it was monitored and not private — were not confidential under Evidence Code section 952 and so were not privileged.

A salesman who suffered a stroke and was fired raised triable issues of age and disability discrimination, even though the same people who hired him made the decision. The Fourth District reversed summary judgment, holding that cane use met the disability threshold, that unexplained employer actions can supply the prima facie inference, and that a strong same-actor inference is still only an inference for the jury (CACI Nos. 2500, 2540, 2570).

Evidentiary objections made in writing before the summary-judgment hearing are preserved for appeal even if the trial court does not expressly rule on them. And California does not adopt a rigid stray-remarks doctrine: discriminatory remarks are not categorically irrelevant but must be considered, with all the…

A plaintiff who relies on his superior qualifications to prove discrimination must show a substantial disparity — a juror who finds the comparison merely 'close' will not ordinarily infer bias. Affirming summary judgment, the First District surveyed the federal relative-qualifications cases and held that the gap between the rejected applicant and the person hired was not wide enough to raise a triable issue.

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; […]