California employment case index

A nursing student said the faculty member running her hospital clinical rotation sexually harassed her and tanked her grade when she refused him. The Fourth District holds a student in a required clinical placement is an “unpaid intern” protected by FEHA, and reverses summary judgment on standing, Government-Claims-Act notice, and deliberate indifference.

A coworker’s off-site sexual advances were not work-related and not imputable to the employer — yet the Fifth District held the employee still stated a FEHA hostile-work-environment claim, because the employer’s refusal to act and its HR representative’s mocking response could independently alter the workplace in an objectively severe manner. A pleading-stage reversal that imports the Ninth Circuit’s totality-of-the-circumstances, employer-response framework (Fuller, Okonowsky) into California law.

When a trial court takes an across-the-board percentage cut to a prevailing plaintiff’s lodestar, must it explain why that particular percentage — or is a general finding of overlitigation enough? Warren demanded case-specific explanation and Snoeck brought that rule into FEHA; Morris rejected it as imported federal law, and Cash v. County of Los Angeles — a 30 percent, $195,234 haircut affirmed over Justice Baker’s meat-cleaver dissent — squarely joined Morris. The Supreme Court granted review on August 20, 2025 (S291827). Until it rules, Cash is persuasive-only under rule 8.1115(e)(1), the published split remains live, and the smart fee motion is built to win under either standard — starting with a written request for specific findings.

An LAPD captain never witnessed officers passing around a fake nude photo of her and was never confronted to her face — yet the Second District affirmed a $4 million FEHA verdict, holding that her secondhand knowledge of the department-wide circulation, and the LAPD’s refusal to stop it, supplied substantial evidence of a severe or pervasive hostile work environment. A leading application of Government Code section 12923.

Reversing summary judgment for United Airlines, the Court of Appeal held that whether three male employees with comparable social-media accounts were "similarly situated" comparators was a question for the jury, applied the continuing violation doctrine and section 12923's low bar to the harassment claim, and found a two-week complaint-to-termination gap sufficient for retaliation causation.

A Rite Aid district manager sent a staff pharmacist lewd photos in a late-night, off-site text exchange that grew out of a friendship predating her employment. The Fifth District affirmed summary judgment for the employer, holding that FEHA strict liability for supervisor harassment attaches only when the supervisor acts “in the capacity of supervisor,” not where the conduct arises from a completely private relationship — and that the plaintiff, invited back after the harasser was fired, was not constructively discharged.

In Ortiz v. Dameron Hospital Assn. (2019) 37 Cal.App.5th 568, the Third District reversed summary judgment for a hospital, holding a jury could find a national-origin and age hostile work environment where a supervisor repeatedly mocked older Filipino nurses’ accents, transferred the plaintiff to a unit she was untrained for, and falsely accused her of sleeping on the job. The supervisor’s animus was attributable to the employer under Government Code section 12926, subdivision (d).

In Caldera v. Department of Corrections & Rehabilitation (2018) 25 Cal.App.5th 31, a correctional officer who stutters proved that a supervisor mocked his speech impediment in front of others at least a dozen times over roughly two years, and a jury awarded $500,000 for FEHA disability harassment. The Court of Appeal affirmed the liability finding, reaffirming that harassment need only be severe OR pervasive — not both — and that because the conduct occurred on “more than one isolated occasion,” the plaintiff was not required to prove a physical assault or threat. On the employer's cross-appeal, the court reversed the trial court's order granting a new trial on damages, because the court failed to file the statement of reasons within the ten days Code of Civil Procedure section 657 requires, rendering the order a nullity.

In Meeks v. AutoZone, the Fourth District reversed defense verdicts in a FEHA sexual harassment case, holding that a cluster of evidentiary rulings cumulatively skewed a credibility contest against the plaintiff. The court drew a usable line under Evidence Code section 1106: a plaintiff’s sexually charged banter directed at the harasser is admissible under subdivision (b), but a privately posted photograph of her tattoo — never shared “with” the harasser — remains barred by subdivision (a). It also confirmed that a harasser puts his intent in issue, and opens the door to me-too evidence, simply by claiming he treated everyone the same.

Reversing a judgment of dismissal entered after a demurrer was sustained without leave to amend, the Court of Appeal held that a hotel housekeeper stated viable FEHA claims for sexual harassment by a nonemployee (Gov. Code, § 12940, subd. (j)(1)) and for failure to prevent harassment (id., subd. (k)) where she alleged she was assaulted on the employer's premises by a drunk trespasser the employer knew or should have known was wandering the property and aggressively propositioning other housekeepers. Whether the employer's response was adequate is a question of fact unsuitable for resolution on demurrer.

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,…

A massage therapist won a FEHA verdict against her spa employer for failing to prevent customer sexual harassment and sex discrimination — even though the same jury found the harassing conduct was not severe or pervasive and that she suffered no adverse employment action. The Court of Appeal reversed, holding that a claim under Government Code section 12940, subdivision (k) is wholly derivative: it cannot stand without an underlying, actionable FEHA violation. Sharpening Trujillo, the court held it is the absence of actionable harassment — not the lack of any harassing conduct — that defeats the prevention claim, and directed entry of judgment for the employer.

A franchisor is not ordinarily the employer of its franchisee’s employees and is not vicariously liable for a franchisee-supervisor’s harassment unless the franchisor has retained or assumed general control over the relevant day-to-day aspects of the franchisee’s employment practices; a comprehensive operating system…

In Salas v. Sierra Chemical Co. (2014) 59 Cal.4th 407, a production worker who had obtained his job with a false Social Security number sued under FEHA for disability discrimination and retaliation; after litigation began, the employer discovered the fraud and won summary judgment on after-acquired-evidence and unclean-hands theories. The California Supreme Court reversed. It held that Senate Bill No. 1818 (Gov. Code § 7285; Civ. Code § 3339; Lab. Code § 1171.5) extends FEHA's remedies to workers “regardless of immigration status,” and that federal immigration law (IRCA, as read in Hoffman Plastic) does not preempt those state remedies except as to lost-pay damages for the period after the employer discovers the worker's ineligibility. Neither after-acquired evidence nor unclean hands is a complete defense; both bear on the remedy, not on liability.

In Serri v. Santa Clara University (2014) 226 Cal.App.4th 830, the Court of Appeal affirmed summary judgment for the University and reaffirmed the FEHA line between discrimination and harassment: a supervisor’s personnel-management decisions — who attends an employee’s meetings, how they are run, and accusations of dishonesty or poor performance — are not harassment under Reno v. Baird and Janken, even if discriminatory; the few stray remarks the plaintiff cited were neither offensive nor pervasive. The court also held after-acquired expert evidence of no adverse consequences did not raise a triable issue on pretext.

In Rosenfeld v. Abraham Joshua Heschel Day School, Inc. (2014) 226 Cal.App.4th 886, the Court of Appeal affirmed a defense verdict in an age-discrimination suit and held that an employer may put before the jury, on mitigation of damages, the employee’s failure to invoke the employer’s internal grievance procedure — extending the FEHA avoidable-consequences doctrine of State Dept. of Health Services v. Superior Court beyond the hostile-environment harassment context in which it arose.

A heterosexual male volunteer at a city water plant sued under FEHA for same-sex harassment by two supervisors. The First District reversed summary judgment for one supervisor — gifts, lunches, suggestive remarks, and pornographic images supported an inference of genuine sexual interest and pervasiveness — while affirming for the other. Finding sexual interest on the record, the court expressly declined to decide the effect of the new statute providing that harassing conduct “need not be motivated by sexual desire.”

A male oil-rig floorhand was relentlessly gay-baited, urinated on, and propositioned by his supervisors. The Court of Appeal held these sex-based attacks on his heterosexual identity were harassment because of sex under the FEHA — no proof of the harassers' sexual desire required — endorsing Singleton, rejecting Kelley, and holding that a special verdict rendered defective by a drafting typo is subject to harmless-error review.

A Muslim engineer born in Pakistan raised triable claims that his employer was liable for a hostile work environment created by Indian coworkers. Because the harassers were nonsupervisory, liability turned on negligence — whether the employer knew or should have known and failed to take corrective action. The Court of Appeal granted a writ reversing summary adjudication of the national-origin and religion harassment claims.

After a Kern County jury returned a defense verdict, the Court of Appeal reversed, holding that “me-too” evidence of harassment of other women — even outside the plaintiff’s presence — is admissible under Evidence Code section 1101, subdivision (b), to prove discriminatory intent and motive, and that harassment “because of sex” requires bias against the plaintiff’s gender, not sexual desire.

A trial court has discretion to deny or reduce a FEHA fee award when the plaintiff’s recovery is modest and the case could have been litigated as a limited civil case; where the fees sought are grossly disproportionate to a minor recovery (here, the judgment could have been rendered in a limited civil case), the court…

Harassment and discrimination are distinct wrongs, but official personnel actions can themselves supply evidence of a hostile message and thus support a harassment claim; the two theories are not hermetically sealed. On punitive damages, the court held that in the circumstances of this case the amount of compensatory…

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…

The Fourth District affirmed a whistleblower-retaliation verdict for an Office on Aging director fired after warning that a County reorganization was unlawful — holding the County waived its exhaustion defense by first raising it after trial — while reversing her sexual-harassment claim under the pre-§ 12923 "severe or pervasive" standard and affirming a remittitur-backed new trial order on damages.

In Myers v. Trendwest Resorts, Inc. (2007) 148 Cal.App.4th 1403, the Third District reversed summary adjudication for the employer, reaffirming that under FEHA an employer is strictly liable for a supervisor's sexual harassment of a subordinate unless the harassment 'result[ed] from a completely private relationship unconnected with the employment'—a narrow exception the court declined to apply where the supervisor exploited his workplace authority.

In Singleton v. United States Gypsum Co. (2006) 140 Cal.App.4th 1547, the Second District reversed summary judgment for the employer, holding that same-sex sexual harassment need not be motivated by sexual desire to be actionable: it is enough that sex was 'used as a weapon to create a hostile work environment,' and the court found triable issues on both the harassment and the employer's knowledge.

The sexually coarse and vulgar language used in the Friends writers’ room was not actionable sexual harassment on this record, because it was generally part of the creative process of writing adult comedic material rather than conduct directed at the plaintiff or at women because of their sex; harassment must be…

Although an isolated workplace romance does not by itself constitute sexual harassment, widespread sexual favoritism that is severe or pervasive may create an actionable hostile work environment — one that conveys the demeaning message that women are sexual playthings and that managers view sexual favors as the way to…

Whether a harasser is personally liable under the FEHA — and his employer strictly liable — often turns on one threshold fact: was he the plaintiff's “supervisor”? In Chapman v. Enos, the Court of Appeal reversed a defense verdict because the trial court told the jury a supervisor must be “fully accountable and responsible” for a subordinate's work product, an extra-statutory requirement that wrongly narrowed the FEHA's class of supervisors. Full accountability is an indicium of supervisory power, the court held, not an element; the statute requires only the responsibility to direct an employee's work using independent judgment.

An employer is strictly liable under the FEHA for a supervisor’s hostile-environment sexual harassment. But the avoidable-consequences doctrine applies: the employer may avoid liability for those damages the employee could have avoided with reasonable effort — for example, by timely using the employer’s complaint…

A workers' compensation judge awarded an inspector benefits for a psychiatric injury, finding the employer's investigation into a coworker's accusation that he had racially discriminated against a trainee was not a good faith personnel action under Labor Code section 3208.3, subdivision (h). The Court of Appeal reversed: because FEHA imposes an affirmative, mandatory duty to take all reasonable steps to prevent and investigate workplace discrimination, a legally compelled investigation conducted without arbitrary motive or intent to deceive is a good faith personnel action exempting the employer from compensation liability — and an unsubstantiated outcome does not retroactively brand the inquiry bad faith.

Attorney fees awarded under section 12965 belong to the attorneys whose services earned them, except to the extent the attorneys and client have entered an enforceable agreement providing otherwise; the portion of a statutory fee award exceeding fees the client already paid does not belong to the client by default.

A jury found Rosie Thompson, a human-resources director, was constructively discharged in retaliation for opposing employment practices she reasonably believed unlawful. The Court of Appeal affirmed the verdict and the full damages award, holding the after-acquired-evidence defense — an equitable doctrine akin to unclean hands — limits relief only where the employer proves the employee in fact would have been terminated for the later-discovered conduct, a burden Tracor failed to meet.

The California Supreme Court held that a nonsupervisory coworker could not be held personally liable under FEHA for harassing a fellow employee: although former Government Code section 12940 prohibited “any … person” from harassing an employee, the statute as a whole reached only the employer's failure to take corrective action, not the coworker's underlying conduct. The court pointed the policy question to the Legislature — which responded the next year by adding Government Code section 12940, subdivision (j)(3), making individual employees personally liable for their own harassment and abrogating the holding.

A remedial injunction prohibiting an employer (and a supervisor adjudicated to have engaged in unlawful racial harassment) from continuing to use racial epithets in the workplace against the plaintiff employees is permissible and does not constitute an unconstitutional prior restraint, because it enjoins speech only…

In one of California's first published workplace racial-harassment decisions under FEHA, the Court of Appeal affirmed a defense verdict, holding that the trial court properly instructed jurors that “occasional, isolated, sporadic, or trivial” racial conduct is not actionable and importing the federal Title VII “severe or pervasive” threshold into state law.

In Beyda v. City of Los Angeles (1998) 65 Cal.App.4th 511, the Second District affirmed a defense judgment, holding that a hostile-environment claim requires conduct that is both objectively and subjectively offensive, and that harassment directed at other employees is relevant only where the plaintiff was aware of it—conduct she neither witnessed nor knew about could not have altered the conditions of her own employment.

An undocumented assembler bought false papers to get hired, then sued for relentless sexual harassment. The employer's only defense was after-acquired evidence of her document fraud. Following McKennon, the Court of Appeal reversed: after-acquired evidence is no complete bar to a FEHA harassment claim, an undocumented worker keeps full employment-law protection while employed, and the defense's factual predicate — whether the employer in fact would have fired her — is a jury question.

The Fifth District affirmed summary judgment and a $64,796.50 defense fee award against a correctional counselor whose gender-bias case rested on "perception" rather than proof — writing the evidentiary rulebook for MSJ oppositions: admissible, specific, personal-knowledge evidence (and record citations on appeal), or nothing.

In Weeks v. Baker & McKenzie (1998) 63 Cal.App.4th 1128, the Court of Appeal affirmed a FEHA sexual-harassment verdict for a legal secretary against a partner and his international law firm, sustaining punitive damages under Civil Code section 3294. The court applied section 3294, subdivision (b)'s managing-agent and ratification requirements to hold the firm liable for the partner's harassment and upheld the punitive award against constitutional challenge.

The Court of Appeal affirmed judgment notwithstanding the verdict for the employer, holding that a jury finding of failure to take reasonable steps to prevent discrimination and harassment cannot stand where the same jury found, by special verdict, that no discrimination, harassment, or retaliation actually occurred. A failure-to-prevent claim is derivative: there must be an underlying actionable wrong to prevent.

The Court of Appeal affirmed judgment on the pleadings for a second-tier supervisor sued only for failing to act on a harassment complaint, holding that a nonharassing supervisor is not personally liable under FEHA — not as an aider and abettor of the harasser or employer, and not as the employer's agent — and distilling supervisor liability into three clear rules.

An aspiring actor alleged a casting director drugged and gang-raped him at the director's home. The Court of Appeal held the director could be treated as the network's agent, triggering FEHA strict liability rather than the negligence standard for coworkers, and that the off-site, off-hours assault was sufficiently work-related to be actionable — while affirming dismissal of the negligent-hiring claim.

Individual supervisors are not personally liable under the FEHA for discrimination, which arises out of the necessary personnel-management functions of the employer; by contrast, harassment — conduct outside the scope of necessary job performance and presumably engaged in for personal gratification or bias — can give…

In Proksel v. Gattis (1996) 41 Cal.App.4th 1626, the Court of Appeal held that an employer's favoritism toward a coworker with whom he is romantically involved does not, without more, give rise to a sex discrimination or sexual harassment claim under FEHA or California public policy — declining to make courts a generalized police power over consensual office relationships.

A married couple fired by a law firm sued for wrongful termination, but the firm discovered during litigation that both had concealed felony convictions. The Court of Appeal affirmed summary judgment: their at-will acknowledgments doomed the contract claims, and the after-acquired-evidence doctrine barred the statutory and public-policy claims because the Camps had misrepresented a government-imposed job qualification, leaving them unlawfully unqualified for the position. Camp marks the point where after-acquired evidence shifts from limiting remedies to barring recovery outright.

In a same-sex sexual-harassment action under FEHA, the trial court sustained the individual defendants' demurrers on the theory that only the employer can be liable. The Court of Appeal granted a writ of mandate, holding that 'persons' under Government Code section 12965 includes individuals, so a harassment claimant may sue the supervisors who personally participated in or aided and abetted the conduct. Harassment by a supervisor with hire-and-fire power is a particularly personal form of discrimination, distinct from hiring discrimination, for which the employer alone answers.

A 10-year employee sued for wrongful discharge and age discrimination; the employer then discovered application misrepresentations made nearly a decade earlier and won summary judgment on the theory that the fraud forfeited all remedies. The Court of Appeal reversed, declining to adopt a blanket rule that material application falsification is a complete defense to a claim the employer did not know about when it fired the worker. The first published California decision on the point, Cooper anticipated the Supreme Court's McKennon by less than a year.

In Kelly-Zurian v. Wohl Shoe Co. (1994) 22 Cal.App.4th 397, the Court of Appeal carried Harris v. Forklift Systems into California's FEHA, holding that harassment need not seriously affect a plaintiff's psychological well-being to be actionable. It confirmed that an employer is strictly liable in compensatory damages for a supervisor's harassment, but held that punitive damages run only through Civil Code section 3294's managing-agent test — which a supervisor with hiring-and-firing power, but no policymaking discretion, did not satisfy.

A male creative editor alleged that his male supervisor subjected him to quid pro quo and hostile-environment sexual harassment. Sustaining the complaint, the Court of Appeal held that FEHA’s prohibition on sexual harassment reaches same-gender conduct: the statute protects against harassment “because of sex” regardless of whether harasser and victim are of the same sex.

The Court of Appeal affirmed a multimillion-dollar FEHA sexual-harassment judgment, holding that AT&T's concealment of the harasser's lost personnel file justified a willful-suppression instruction, and that sexual harassment is a personal injury supporting prejudgment interest. The decision is a leading authority on respondeat-superior liability for harassment and on the adverse inference from spoliated employment records.

To state a hostile-environment sexual harassment claim, a plaintiff must allege conduct that was unwelcome, based on sex, and sufficiently severe or pervasive to alter the conditions of employment and create an abusive working environment; an employee may be “subjected to” a hostile environment by harassment she…

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.