California employment case index

Dynamex Operations West, Inc. v. Superior Court (2018) 4 Cal.5th 903 adopts the “ABC test” for California wage-order claims: a worker is presumed an employee, and the hiring entity must prove all three prongs — freedom from control, work outside the usual course of business, and an independently established trade — to establish independent-contractor status.

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…

For certification, the key question is whether the hiring entity’s right to control the manner and means of the work — the principal test of employment — can be established through common proof (such as the standard contract and uniform policies), not whether each worker was in fact controlled to the same degree; the…

A maintenance technician paid $10 an hour and never reimbursed for the heavy work mileage he was ordered to drive in his own truck could state a claim for constructive discharge in violation of public policy, where the unreimbursed expense pushed his effective pay below the minimum wage; whether conditions were intolerable was normally a jury question, so the demurrer should not have been sustained. The IIED count, however, was barred by workers' compensation exclusivity.