California employment case index

Martinez v. Combs (2010) 49 Cal.4th 35 holds that the IWC wage orders’ own definitions govern who is an “employer” for minimum-wage claims: to “employ” means (a) to exercise control over wages, hours, or working conditions, (b) to suffer or permit to work, or (c) to engage in a common-law employment relationship. The produce merchants were not the workers’ employers.

In a mixed legal-equitable trial, the First District held that a judge must follow a jury's factual findings on the legal claims when fashioning equitable relief on common facts — yet may independently resolve an equitable defense such as estoppel that turns on facts the jury never decided. Hoopes v. Dolan affirmed a defense judgment and supplies the procedural architecture for sequencing and trying equitable affirmative defenses alongside a jury verdict — a structure FEHA practitioners invoke when an employer raises equitable defenses.

The section 226.7 meal/rest payment is a wage (premium pay), not a penalty, and is therefore governed by the three-year statute of limitations applicable to wage claims rather than the one-year period for penalties.

“Discharge” under sections 201 and 203 includes not only firing but also releasing an employee upon completion of the particular job assignment or time duration for which he or she was hired; final wages are then immediately due, and a willful failure to pay triggers waiting-time penalties.

California does not permit wage averaging: the minimum-wage standard applies to each hour worked, and an employer must pay at least the minimum wage for every compensable hour; it cannot use higher pay for some hours to offset unpaid or sub-minimum hours.

Sav-On Drug Stores v. Superior Court (2004) 34 Cal.4th 319 holds that wage-and-hour class certification is reviewed for abuse of discretion and turns on whether the plaintiffs’ theory of recovery is amenable to common proof — not on the existence of individual issues or the ultimate merits. The Court reinstated certification of a manager-misclassification class.

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.

Statutory attorney fees are calculated by the lodestar method — the reasonable hours expended multiplied by a reasonable hourly rate — and the lodestar may be adjusted by a multiplier based on factors including the contingent risk of the representation, the novelty and difficulty of the issues, the skill displayed,…

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.

Morillion v. Royal Packing Co. (2000) 22 Cal.4th 575 holds that the wage order’s “subject to the control of an employer” and “suffered or permitted to work” clauses are independent: an employee under the employer’s control is paid even when not working. Compulsory travel on employer-mandated buses is compensable “hours worked,” and the federal Portal-to-Portal Act does not govern California law.