The Review · Case Index

California employment case index

Search every indexed California wrongful-termination and employment decision, or browse by subject area, statute, and decade — each summary source-verified against the published reporter.

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112 cases

Doss v. Tesla, Inc.

June 11, 2026
A Tesla yard hostler who moved 53-foot trailers of out-of-state auto parts around the Fremont factory — never crossing a state line — sued for wage-and-hour violations, and Tesla moved to compel individual arbitration. In the published portion of its opinion, the First District holds yard hostlers are FAA section 1 transportation workers exempt from arbitration, and clarifies which wage claims Labor Code section 229 keeps in court.

Quinteros v. Harbor Distributing, LLC

June 11, 2026
A firm filed a wage-and-hour class action duplicating one it had already filed elsewhere, then opposed a stay with a brief — drafted by a contract attorney using generative AI — full of nonexistent citations and at least eight fabricated quotations. The First District affirms $6,000 in section 128.7 sanctions: counsel of record bear ultimate responsibility for what they sign, and the duty to verify authority cannot be delegated to any form of technology.

Cortina v. North American Title Company

May 29, 2026
After 19 years of litigation, a bifurcated bench trial produced a $43 million judgment for ~400 escrow workers who claimed they were misclassified as exempt. The Fifth District reverses on two independent grounds: the trial court could not delegate the entire damages phase to a private referee without the parties’ consent, and the liability-phase trial plan violated Duran by using representative sampling to prove classwide liability while barring the employer from contesting individual exempt status.

Vela v. Harbor Rail Services of California, Inc.

May 1, 2026
A railcar repairman who inspected and repaired freight cars taken out of service in a rail yard brought a wage-and-hour class action and argued his arbitration agreement was exempt as a transportation worker’s contract. The Second District disagrees: he is neither a “railroad employee” nor a “transportation worker” under FAA section 1, because repairing decommissioned cars is too far removed from actual transportation — so his arbitration agreement and class waiver are enforceable.

Martinez v. Sierra Lifestar, Inc.

April 21, 2026
An EMT sought to certify a 135-worker class alleging the employer left nondiscretionary “EMS Bonuses” out of the regular rate, underpaying overtime and premiums. The Fifth District reverses the denial of class certification: the employer’s gift/discretion defense applied to every EMS Bonus, so it was not a defense “unique” to the named plaintiff.

Pechkis v. Trustees of the California State University

March 24, 2026
Two Chico State physics professors sued the CSU Trustees for retaliation, alleging a sham investigation and sabotage of their move to a new university after they reported harassment. The Trustees moved to strike the claims under the anti-SLAPP statute as “based in part” on protected speech. The Third District affirms denial: a movant must analyze each claim element-by-element and identify which acts are protected — “based in part” is not enough.

Guardian Storage Centers, LLC v. Simpson

March 24, 2026
A terminated COO forwarded her employer’s e-mails — some attorney-client privileged — to her personal account and handed them to her lawyers for her wrongful-termination and harassment cross-claims. The Fourth District holds the State Fund rule on handling privileged materials applies even to such intentional, unauthorized disclosures, and reverses the denial of the employer’s motion to disqualify counsel.

Paknad v. Superior Court

March 24, 2026
Intuitive Surgical defended a harassment suit by pointing to the adequacy of its attorney-led investigation, then tried to withhold the investigator’s findings as work product. The Sixth District grants the employee a writ: putting the investigation’s adequacy at issue waives privilege and even core work product over the investigator’s factual findings and anything bearing on the investigation’s scope and adequacy.

Ehrenkranz v. San Francisco Zen Center

March 2, 2026
A former Work Practice Apprentice at the San Francisco Zen Center won a wage award, but the trial court held the First Amendment’s ministerial exception barred his claims. The First District reverses, adopting its companion case Lorenzo: the exception bars only claims that require resolving ecclesiastical questions, and the Center showed none. NOTE: the controlling ministerial-exception issue is now before the California Supreme Court in Lorenzo (S294565), so this opinion is citable for persuasive value only.

Ratha v. Rubicon Resources, LLC

February 20, 2026
Cambodian villagers forced to work at Thai seafood factories sued a U.S. marketer under the trafficking civil-remedy statute; their case was dismissed because the statute then reached only those who succeeded in benefiting, not those who attempted to. After Congress amended the law, the en banc Ninth Circuit holds the clarifying amendment retroactive — and that Landgraf governs all such amendments, overruling the “clarifying amendment” exception — reviving the claims.

De Paolo v. Rosales

December 22, 2025
A resident manager whose apartment came with the job refused to leave after she was terminated. The Appellate Division affirms an unlawful detainer judgment: housing provided as part of employment compensation is not a protected tenancy, the former manager became a tenant at sufferance or licensee outside the Tenant Protection Act, and her retaliatory-eviction defense failed for lack of evidence.

Contreras v. Green Thumb Produce, Inc.

December 15, 2025
A produce-plant forklift driver was fired after complaining his pay lagged behind coworkers’. He wrongly believed the Equal Pay Act reached the gap — but the Fourth District holds his mistake of law does not sink his Labor Code section 1102.5(b) whistleblower verdict, because the statute asks only whether he had objectively reasonable cause to believe a violation occurred, a question for the jury.

County of Los Angeles v. Niblett

October 31, 2025
A fire-department mechanic repeatedly confronted management and then alluded to an incident in which a firefighter fatally shot another firefighter. The Second District affirms a three-year workplace violence restraining order under section 527.8: the veiled reference was a credible, implied threat outside the First Amendment, and the order’s firearm restriction survives Second Amendment review under Rahimi.

Lampkin v. County of Los Angeles: No § 1102.5(j) Fees After a § 1102.6 Same-Decision Defense

July 8, 2025
A sheriff’s deputy proved every element of his whistleblower retaliation claim — and still left the courthouse owing costs. The jury found his protected disclosures were a factor in the County’s actions against him, but also that the County would have made the same decisions anyway. Division Four held that a plaintiff defeated by the section 1102.6 same-decision defense who obtains no relief has not brought a “successful action” under section 1102.5(j): no attorney’s fees, and the employer is the prevailing party for costs. The panel declined to extend Harris v. City of Santa Monica’s FEHA rule, agreed the contrary result would be “a rational policy choice,” and pointedly left the fix to the Legislature.

Brown v. City of Inglewood: Elected Officials Are Not “Employees” Under Labor Code § 1102.5

July 7, 2025
Inglewood’s elected city treasurer accused the mayor of misappropriating public funds, then saw her monthly salary cut from $8,000 to $1,404 and her duties stripped away. Her whistleblower retaliation suit under Labor Code section 1102.5 failed at the threshold: a unanimous Supreme Court held that elected officials are not “employees” within section 1106’s definition. Finding the statutory text inconclusive, the court rested on legislative history and context — section 1106 protects rank-and-file public workers, not officials who answer to the electorate — while noting that other remedies, including the First Amendment, may remain available.

Bradsbery v. Vicar Operating: Prospective, Revocable Meal-Period Waivers Are Valid

April 21, 2025
Two veterinary workers signed a standing written waiver of their meal break for shifts of six hours or less — revocable at any time — then sued years later, arguing meal periods can be waived only shift by shift after the right accrues. Division Seven disagreed: section 512 and the wage orders are silent on timing and form, and eighty years of IWC history treats written prospective waivers as employee protection, not evasion. But the holding is expressly conditional: the court reserved unconscionable, coerced, unknowing, and irrevocable waivers, and oral prospective waivers entirely. Bradsbery is a safe harbor for clean waiver programs — and a litigation roadmap against defective ones.

Wawrzenski v. United Airlines — comparator evidence is for the jury: the marquee MSJ reversal on FEHA discrimination, harassment, and retaliation

October 22, 2024
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.

Stone v. Alameda Health System: Public-Entity Employers Are Not Subject to PAGA (or Most Labor Code Wage Rules)

August 15, 2024
Two Highland Hospital workers sued the public hospital authority running Alameda County’s medical facilities for meal-and-rest violations, unpaid wages, and PAGA penalties. A unanimous Supreme Court ended the case at the definitions: Labor Code section 18’s “person” — the term that controls who is an “employer” under the wage order and who can be penalized under PAGA — affirmatively excludes public entities. Absent express words bringing the government in, break rules and PAGA penalties stop at the public-sector line. The court disapproved Sargent’s contrary rule for statutes carrying their own penalties, declined to decide whether Government Code section 818 independently bars such penalties, and reserved the effect of the 2024 PAGA reform.

Castellanos v. State of California: The Supreme Court Upholds Proposition 22 and Holds the Legislature’s Article XIV Workers’-Compensation Power Is Not Exclusive of the Initiative

July 25, 2024
The California Supreme Court unanimously upholds Proposition 22 (Bus. & Prof. Code, § 7451), holding that the Legislature’s “plenary” and “unlimited” authority over workers’ compensation under article XIV, section 4 is not exclusive of the people’s reserved initiative power — while expressly reserving the harder questions about Proposition 22’s seven-eighths amendment rule.

Naranjo v. Spectrum Security Services (Naranjo II): A Good-Faith Belief in Compliance Defeats Section 226 and Section 203 Penalties

May 6, 2024
In Naranjo II (2024) 15 Cal.5th 1056, the California Supreme Court holds that an employer’s objectively reasonable, good-faith belief that its wage statements complied with the law defeats both Labor Code § 226 penalties (no “knowing and intentional” violation) and § 203 waiting-time penalties (no “willful” failure) — harmonizing the two penalty statutes around a common good-faith defense.

Huerta v. CSI Electrical Contractors: “Hours Worked” at the Security Gate, the Commute, and On-Premises Meal Periods

March 25, 2024
A solar-project electrician queued unpaid at a security gate while guards inspected vehicles, drove miles of access road under strict site rules, and ate lunch confined to a designated area under a CBA calling meal periods “unpaid.” Answering the Ninth Circuit, a unanimous Supreme Court held the exit procedure is compensable “hours worked”; the gate-to-lot drive is compensable only as “employer-mandated travel,” and only if the gate is the first location required for a reason beyond site access; and no collective bargaining agreement can waive the minimum wage for a meal period during which the employer’s confinement forecloses otherwise feasible personal activities.

Estrada v. Royalty Carpet Mills: PAGA Claims Cannot Be Struck as “Unmanageable”

January 18, 2024
Estrada v. Royalty Carpet Mills, Inc. (2024) 15 Cal.5th 582 holds that trial courts lack inherent authority to strike a PAGA claim as unmanageable, even if it is complex or time-intensive. Manageability is a class-action requirement that does not apply to PAGA; complexity must be handled through ordinary case-management tools, not dismissal.

People ex rel. Garcia-Brower v. Kolla’s, Inc.

May 22, 2023
People ex rel. Garcia-Brower v. Kolla’s, Inc.A protected “disclosure” under Labor Code section 1102.5(b) includes an employee’s report or complaint of a legal violation to an employer — even when the recipient already knows of the violation.People ex rel. Garcia-Brower v. Kolla’s, Inc. (2023) 14 Cal.5th 719Parallel citations: 529 P.3d 49; 308 Cal.Rptr.3d 388. Supreme […]

Camp v. Home Depot: Is Neutral Time-Rounding Still Lawful When Actual Time Is Captured? (pending review)

October 24, 2022
Home Depot’s Kronos system recorded Delmer Camp’s time to the minute — then quarter-hour rounding paid him for 470 fewer minutes than his own timecards showed. The Sixth District reversed summary judgment: under Troester and Donohue, an employer that can capture and has captured exact worktime must pay for all of it, and no California text authorizes rounding that underpays an identifiable employee. The panel invited the Supreme Court to decide whether See’s Candy neutral rounding survives at all — and the Court granted review (S277518), where the case remains pending. Cite it as persuasive only, with the review-granted parenthetical, and re-verify status before filing.

Vatalaro v. County of Sacramento — the same-decision defense wins summary judgment after Lawson

May 5, 2022
Months after Lawson, the Third District affirmed summary judgment for the County of Sacramento under Labor Code § 1102.6 — undisputed evidence of insubordination, disrespect, and dishonesty proved clearly and convincingly that the county would have released the probationary employee anyway — while leaving open whether § 1102.5 requires an actual belief that the law was violated.

Scheer v. Regents of the University of California — which framework governs which whistleblower statute after Lawson

March 28, 2022
Reversing summary judgment for the UC Regents, the Second District mapped the post-Lawson landscape — Labor Code § 1102.6 governs § 1102.5 claims, Government Code § 8547.10(e) supplies the same framework for University of California whistleblowers, and McDonnell Douglas still governs Health and Safety Code § 1278.5 claims, under which Scheer's clause-by-clause dismantling of his termination letter raised a triable issue of pretext.

Vazquez v. Jan-Pro Franchising: The Dynamex ABC Test Applies Retroactively

January 14, 2021
Vazquez v. Jan-Pro Franchising International, Inc. (2021) 10 Cal.5th 944 holds that the ABC test adopted in Dynamex applies retroactively — to all cases not yet final when Dynamex was decided — exposing pre-2018 wage-order conduct to the new worker-classification standard.

People v. Uber Technologies: Rideshare Drivers Are Likely Employees Under Prong B of the ABC Test

October 22, 2020
The Court of Appeal affirms a statewide preliminary injunction against Uber and Lyft, holding the People likely to prevail under prong B of the ABC test (Lab. Code, § 2775) — rideshare driving is within the usual course of the companies’ business — and rejecting the “technology platform” defense as a false dichotomy. (Predates Proposition 22; see Castellanos.)

Frlekin v. Apple Inc.: Mandatory Exit-Search Time Is Compensable “Hours Worked”

February 13, 2020
Frlekin v. Apple Inc. (2020) 8 Cal.5th 1038 holds that time spent waiting for and undergoing mandatory exit bag-and-device searches is compensable “hours worked” under the control clause — even after clocking out, and even though employees could have avoided a search by not bringing a bag. It applies Morillion and rejects the “optional” defense.

Ross v. County of Riverside — Job-Duty Disclosures Are Protected: a Pre-Lawson Building Block

June 20, 2019
The Fourth District reversed summary judgment for the County, holding that a deputy district attorney's internal warnings that a murder prosecution lacked probable cause were protected disclosures under Labor Code section 1102.5 — no express citation of law required, job duties notwithstanding — and that months of testing for a suspected neurological disease raised a triable issue of FEHA disability.

Laker v. Board of Trustees of CSU: When a Retaliation Claim Does Not Arise From Protected Speech

February 28, 2019
A tenured professor sued CSU for retaliation and defamation after the university launched investigations and made statements about him. CSU moved to strike under the anti-SLAPP statute. The Court of Appeal held the retaliation claim did not “arise from” protected speech merely because protected activity sat in the background, and applied Baral v. Schnitt to parse the pleading into its component claims — striking only the discrete defamation allegations that were themselves based on protected statements.

Ward v. Tilly’s: Reporting-Time Pay for On-Call / Call-In Shifts

February 4, 2019
Tilly’s required retail workers to phone the store exactly two hours before every on-call shift — under threat of written discipline — and paid nothing if the answer was ‘don’t come in.’ Division Three held, 2–1, that this triggers Wage Order 7 reporting-time pay: ‘reporting for work’ means presenting oneself as ordered, and the employer’s own directions define the manner, whether that is walking through the door, logging on remotely, or making a mandatory call. The holding is deliberately tied to the two-hour call-in regime, the retroactivity question was expressly left open, and Justice Egerton’s partial dissent — built on 18,000 pages of IWC history — supplies the employer playbook. Review was denied; Ward remains the leading California authority on call-in scheduling.

Wassmann v. South Orange County CCD: The Continuing-Violation Doctrine and Permanence at Termination

June 12, 2018
In Wassmann v. South Orange County Community College Dist. (2018) 24 Cal.App.5th 825, the Court of Appeal affirmed summary judgment against a dismissed community-college librarian, holding her FEHA discrimination and harassment claims time-barred. Applying the three-part continuing-violation test from Richards v. CH2M Hill, the court held the doctrine could not save the claims because the pre- and post-limitations acts were “not at all similar” and the employer’s conduct “acquired a degree of permanence” when her employment was terminated — and post-dismissal acts of a neutral administrative law judge could not be imputed to the employer.

Alvarado v. Dart Container Corp.

March 5, 2018
For a flat-sum bonus like the attendance bonus here, the bonus is divided by the number of non-overtime (straight-time) hours the employee actually worked — not by total hours including overtime — to determine the per-hour value added to the regular rate; this yields a higher overtime rate, more protective than the…

Whitehall v. County of San Bernardino: Administrative Leave as an Adverse Employment Action

November 15, 2017
In Whitehall v. County of San Bernardino (2017) 17 Cal.App.5th 352, a county social worker was placed on administrative leave days after telling the juvenile court that her superiors had directed her to submit misleading evidence; the County’s anti-SLAPP motion to strike her whistleblower suit was denied. Affirming, the Court of Appeal held the leave — unrequested, investigative, paired with a decision to terminate her, and removing her from her assigned case — was an adverse employment action under Yanowitz’s contextual materiality standard, so the claim was not a meritless SLAPP.

Light v. Department of Parks & Recreation

August 8, 2017
An employee’s refusal to participate in conduct she reasonably believes is unlawful under the FEHA — including refusing to go along with retaliation against a coworker — can constitute protected activity, and threats or intimidation may qualify as a materially adverse employment action supporting a retaliation claim;…

Bareno v. San Diego Community College District

January 13, 2017
In Bareno v. San Diego Community College District (2017) 7 Cal.App.5th 546, the Fourth District reversed summary judgment for the employer on a CFRA retaliation claim, holding that the 30-day advance-notice rule does not apply when the need for medical leave is unforeseeable — notice need only be given “as soon as practicable” — and that whether an employee sufficiently requested leave and supplied adequate certification is a question of fact. The employer’s decision to treat the employee’s medical absences as a “voluntary resignation,” coming virtually immediately after she sought leave, raised triable issues of retaliatory causation.

Dinslage v. City and County of San Francisco: Advocacy Is Not Protected Activity

November 9, 2016
When a recreation-program manager was laid off after publicly opposing the City's cuts to disabled-community services, he sued for FEHA retaliation. The Court of Appeal affirmed summary judgment for the City, holding that generalized advocacy for the disabled public is not “protected activity” under Government Code section 12940, subdivision (h): the opposition clause reaches only opposition to conduct an employee reasonably believes is unlawful employment discrimination against an employee or applicant, not opposition to policy choices affecting the public at large.

Moore v. Regents of University of California: Direct Evidence and McDonnell Douglas

June 2, 2016
A long-serving employee laid off after her supervisor allegedly called her a “liability to the department” in light of her heart condition sued for perceived-disability discrimination, failure to accommodate, CFRA violations, and FEHA retaliation. The Court of Appeal reversed summary judgment on the disability-related claims — the supervisor's remark plus the employer's departure from its own seniority and recall policies raised triable issues of pretext — but affirmed on retaliation, holding that a pre-2016 accommodation request was not, by itself, “protected activity.”

Satyadi v. West Contra Costa Healthcare District

December 31, 2014
Satyadi v. West Contra Costa Healthcare District An employee need not exhaust the Labor Commissioner’s administrative remedy before bringing a civil whistleblower-retaliation action; the 2013 enactment of Labor Code sections 244 and 98.7, subdivision (g), merely clarified existing law. Satyadi v. West Contra Costa Healthcare District (2014) 232 Cal.App.4th 1022 Parallel citation: 182 Cal.Rptr.3d 21. […]

Peabody v. Time Warner Cable, Inc.

July 14, 2014
An employer satisfies the minimum-earnings prong of the commissioned-employee exemption only in those pay periods in which it actually pays the required minimum earnings; it may not attribute commission wages paid in one pay period to other pay periods to manufacture compliance (59 Cal.4th at p. 664).

Kim v. Konad USA Distribution: FEHA Exhaustion Is Not Jurisdictional — and Can Be Forfeited

June 12, 2014
In Kim v. Konad USA Distribution, Inc. (2014) 226 Cal.App.4th 1336, the Court of Appeal affirmed a $60,000 bench-trial judgment for a sexually harassed employee, holding that FEHA’s administrative-exhaustion requirement is “jurisdictional” only in the loose, prudential sense and does not affect the trial court’s fundamental subject matter jurisdiction. Because the defendants waited until after the case was submitted to assert non-exhaustion, they forfeited the defense; and because exhaustion is not truly jurisdictional, the court could consider post-trial materials confirming the plaintiff had in fact exhausted. The court also held a harassment claim lies against an employer of any size.

Thornbrough v. Western Placer: The Same-Decision Defense After Harris, Without Conceding Mixed Motives

December 23, 2013
A school-district maintenance supervisor, fired after a sustained pattern of insubordination, computer misuse, and retaliation against co-workers, claimed his discharge was really payback for whistleblowing about District construction projects. The Third District affirmed the denial of his mandamus petition, applying the Supreme Court's then-new decision in Harris v. City of Santa Monica to hold that an employer may invoke the same-decision showing without conceding mixed motives, and that untainted misconduct alone justified termination — making the protected-activity question unnecessary to decide.

Rope v. Auto-Chlor System of Washington, Inc.: FEHA Associational-Disability Discrimination

October 16, 2013
In Rope v. Auto-Chlor System of Washington, Inc. (2013) 220 Cal.App.4th 635, the Second District held that FEHA forbids firing a nondisabled employee because of his association with a disabled relative, sustaining an expense-theory associational claim where the employer allegedly fired the plaintiff to avoid paying for organ-donation leave for his disabled sister. The court affirmed dismissal of the retaliation, Labor Code, PAGA, and direct-disability counts while reinstating the associational, failure-to-prevent, and public-policy claims.

Acuna v. San Diego Gas & Electric: When the Limitations Clock Starts on a FEHA Termination

June 19, 2013
In Acuna v. San Diego Gas & Electric Co. (2013) 217 Cal.App.4th 1402, reviewing a sustained demurrer, the Court of Appeal held the plaintiff’s FEHA disability- and race-discrimination claims time-barred but reversed on her retaliation and wrongful-termination claims, holding that the section 12960 clock for a discharge runs from the actual termination — not from when the retaliatory motive arose — and that the employer, which controlled the termination date, controlled the accrual trigger. On the accommodation claims, continuing-violation tolling ended once the employer’s refusal reached a degree of permanence.

McCoy v. Pacific Maritime Assn.: Retaliation Is for the Jury

May 14, 2013
After a vessel-planner trainee complained, a confidential settlement was leaked and coworker hostility followed; the jury found retaliation, but the trial court entered JNOV. The Court of Appeal reversed the JNOV, holding that actions for retaliation are “inherently fact-driven” and that the jury, not the court, decides whether the conduct materially altered the plaintiff's employment — while affirming the alternative new-trial order on grounds of attorney misconduct, surprise, and excessive damages.

Bluford v. Safeway, Inc.

May 8, 2013
Rest periods must be separately compensated and cannot be folded into a piece-rate or activity-based pay formula; because Safeway’s uniform pay system did not separately pay for rest periods, common issues predominated and the class should have been certified (216 Cal.App.4th at p. 866).

Gonzalez v. Downtown LA Motors, LP

March 6, 2013
Piece-rate employees are entitled to separate hourly compensation for time spent waiting for repair work or performing other nonrepair tasks directed by the employer during their work shifts; piece-rate earnings cannot be averaged across that nonproductive time to satisfy the minimum-wage obligation (215 Cal.App.4th…

McGrory v. Applied Signal Technology: No Shield for Lying in an Investigation

January 24, 2013
A manager fired after an internal investigation into a subordinate's harassment complaint sued for discrimination and retaliation. Affirming summary judgment for the employer, the Court of Appeal held that Government Code section 12940, subdivision (h) does not shield an employee from termination or discipline for lying or withholding information during the employer's internal investigation — such dishonesty and non-cooperation are unprotected and supply a legitimate, nondiscriminatory ground to terminate an at-will employee.

Fitzsimons v. California Emergency Physicians: A Partner’s Right to Sue for Retaliation

May 16, 2012
A physician-partner alleged she was stripped of her regional directorship after reporting that CEP officers had sexually harassed the partnership's employees. The trial court dismissed her claim because, as a partner, she was not an “employee.” The Court of Appeal reversed, holding that FEHA's retaliation provision protects “any person” who opposes forbidden practices — so a partner who opposes her partnership-employer's harassment of its employees is protected from retaliation, notwithstanding Jones v. Lodge at Torrey Pines.

Kirby v. Immoos Fire Protection, Inc.

April 30, 2012
Neither Labor Code section 1194 nor section 218.5 authorizes an award of attorney fees to a party that prevails on a section 226.7 claim; such claims are not actions for the nonpayment of minimum wages or overtime (§1194) and are not the kind of nonpayment-of-wages action that triggers §218.5 fee-shifting, so each…

Joaquin v. City of Los Angeles: The Honest-Belief Defense to Retaliation

January 23, 2012
An LAPD officer who was disciplined after the Department concluded he had fabricated a sexual-harassment complaint won a jury verdict for retaliation. The Court of Appeal reversed, holding that an employer does not retaliate under FEHA when it disciplines an employee based on a genuine, good-faith determination that the harassment complaint was false — and that an independent, de novo adjudication of the charges insulates the resulting discipline from claims that animus tainted the underlying investigation.

Mize-Kurzman v. Marin Community College Dist. — Defining “Disclosure” (and What Kolla’s Later Rejected)

January 10, 2012
The First District reversed a defense verdict for instructional error, holding a whistleblower's motive irrelevant and reasonable-belief reports of unlawful policies protected even where debatable — but its further rule that reporting “publicly known” information is not a disclosure was later rejected by the Supreme Court in Kolla's, and the article maps what survives.

Harris v. Superior Court

December 29, 2011
Courts may not treat the administrative/production worker dichotomy as a dispositive test for the administrative exemption; the exemption must be analyzed under the language of the applicable IWC wage order and governing regulations, considering the actual work performed, rather than a rigid dichotomy.

Jaramillo v. County of Orange

November 8, 2011
Jaramillo v. County of Orange A peace officer’s warnings to his own boss about the boss’s illegal conduct are protected whistleblowing under Labor Code section 1102.5; blanket POBRA waivers are invalid; and after-acquired evidence of unrelated crimes does not retroactively defeat a wrongful-discharge backpay award. Jaramillo v. County of Orange (2011) 200 Cal.App.4th 811 Parallel […]

Rogers v. County of Los Angeles

August 16, 2011
The Court of Appeal reversed a $356,000 CFRA judgment, holding that the right to reinstatement to the same or a comparable position expires at the end of the 12-week protected leave — so an employee who returned after 19 weeks had no interference claim — and that her retaliation claim failed for lack of evidence rebutting the County’s reorganization rationale.

Kelley v. The Conco Companies: Employer Liability for Coworker Retaliation

June 6, 2011
An ironworker apprentice subjected to graphic same-sex verbal abuse complained, then faced a campaign of coworker hostility and lost work opportunities. The Court of Appeal affirmed summary judgment on the sexual-harassment claim (the conduct was not shown to be “because of sex”) but revived the retaliation claim, holding that an employer may be liable under FEHA when it knows or should know that coworkers are punishing an employee for protected complaints and fails to take reasonable steps to stop them.

Pineda v. Bank of America, N.A.

November 18, 2010
Section 203(b) contains a single, three-year limitations period governing all actions for section 203 penalties, regardless of whether the penalty claim is accompanied by a claim for unpaid final wages; and the penalties may be recovered even though the underlying wages were eventually paid.

Martinez v. Combs: The Wage Orders Define “Employer” — Control, Suffer or Permit, or Common-Law Engagement

May 20, 2010
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.

George v. California Unemployment Ins. Appeals Bd.: The Substantial-Motivating-Factor Standard

December 9, 2009
A state administrative law judge prevailed on a FEHA retaliation claim after she was suspended following gender-bias complaints. Affirming her judgment, the Court of Appeal confirmed that a retaliation plaintiff need prove only that retaliatory animus was “at least a substantial or motivating factor” in the adverse action — not its sole or but-for cause — and that a civil-service board's finding that some discipline was warranted does not, by itself, defeat the claim.

Nazir v. United Airlines, Inc.

October 9, 2009
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…

Dominguez v. Washington Mutual Bank: The Continuing-Violation Doctrine and FEHA Limitations Accrual

November 21, 2008
Reversing summary judgment, the Second District held that a lesbian mail-services employee raised triable issues on whether her FEHA administrative complaint was timely under the continuing-violation doctrine, even though her harasser stopped his explicit sexual-orientation slurs over a year before she filed. Applying Richards v. CH2M Hill, the court held the harasser's later, facially neutral work-sabotage campaign could be “similar in kind” to the slurs and that “permanence” turns on when the harassment stops, the employee resigns, or protest becomes futile — not on when the offensive words cease.

Miklosy v. Regents of University of California

July 31, 2008
Miklosy v. Regents of University of California The Whistleblower Protection Act bars a damages action against the University once it timely decides an internal retaliation complaint; a Tameny tort does not lie against a public entity or against a supervisor; and workers’ compensation exclusivity bars the related emotional-distress claim. Miklosy v. Regents of University of […]

Mamou v. Trendwest Resorts, Inc.

July 30, 2008
Summary judgment was error. A plaintiff may defeat the motion by producing evidence from which a trier of fact could find the employer’s proffered reasons unworthy of credence, and the record here showed the dismissal decision may in fact have been made by Mamou’s own biased immediate supervisor, raising triable…

Steele v. Youthful Offender Parole Bd.: Preemptive FEHA Retaliation

May 13, 2008
In Steele v. Youthful Offender Parole Bd. (2008) 162 Cal.App.4th 1241, the Third District affirmed a judgment and fee award for an employee, holding that FEHA's anti-retaliation provision reaches preemptive retaliation—adverse action taken against an employee the employer believes will become a complainant or witness in a discrimination proceeding—even before the employee has formally opposed any practice or filed any charge.

Jones v. The Lodge at Torrey Pines Partnership

March 3, 2008
The same rule that governs discrimination governs retaliation: the employer, but not nonemployer individuals, may be held liable for retaliation under the FEHA (id. at p. 1160).

Mokler v. County of Orange — Whistleblower Retaliation, Waived Exhaustion, and a Harassment Holding Overtaken by § 12923

November 26, 2007
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.

Loggins v. Kaiser Permanente Internat. — Temporal Proximity Alone Does Not Defeat Summary Judgment

May 14, 2007
The Fourth District held that while the timing of an adverse action can carry a FEHA retaliation plaintiff past the prima facie stage — even on an uncorroborated declaration — temporal proximity does not, standing alone, create a triable issue of pretext once the employer produces evidence of a legitimate reason, and it expressly rejected Gemini Aluminum's suggestion that employers must also prove their termination procedures were objectively fair.

Faust v. California Portland Cement Co.: CFRA Interference, Employer Notice Duties, and the No-Magic-Words Rule at Summary Judgment

May 10, 2007
Reversing summary judgment, the Court of Appeal held that an employee need not mention the CFRA to request protected medical leave — and that an employer that never gave notice of CFRA rights, rejected a chiropractor's certification out of hand, and refused to communicate with the employee's designated representatives could not defeat his interference, retaliation, disability discrimination, and wrongful termination claims as a matter of law.

Murphy v. Kenneth Cole Productions, Inc.

April 16, 2007
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.

Taylor v. L.A. DWP: Retaliation as Discrimination Under § 12940(k)

November 20, 2006
In Taylor v. City of Los Angeles Dept. of Water & Power (2006) 144 Cal.App.4th 1216, the Second District reversed a dismissal on demurrer, holding that retaliation is a form of discrimination so that the employer's duty to take all reasonable steps to prevent discrimination under Government Code section 12940, subdivision (k), extends to retaliation—and that a supervisor may be held personally liable for retaliation under subdivision (h).

McRae v. Department of Corrections & Rehabilitation — What Counts as an Adverse Employment Action After Yanowitz

August 29, 2006
On retransfer from the Supreme Court in light of Yanowitz, the First District reversed a $75,000 retaliation verdict, holding that file memoranda, a letter of instruction, an investigation, an unimplemented 30-day suspension, and a lateral transfer to a comparable position did not — separately or collectively — materially affect the terms, conditions, or privileges of employment, and that the surgeon's beliefs about her employer's motives were not substantial evidence of pretext.

Smith v. Superior Court (L’Oreal)

July 10, 2006
“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.

Burlington Northern & Santa Fe Railway Co. v. White

June 22, 2006
Title VII’s anti-retaliation provision is not limited to employer actions affecting the terms and conditions of employment or occurring at the workplace; it prohibits any employer action that a reasonable employee would have found materially adverse — that is, action that might well dissuade a reasonable worker from…

Armenta v. Osmose, Inc.

December 29, 2005
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.

Patten v. Grant Joint Union High School Dist.: The Yanowitz Materiality Test Governs a Section 1102.5 Whistleblower Claim

December 19, 2005
When a whistleblowing high-school principal was moved to a smaller, quieter school at identical pay, title, and job description, the Third District held that the Yanowitz “materiality” standard for an adverse employment action — built for FEHA retaliation — governs a Labor Code section 1102.5(b) whistleblower claim too, and that a same-pay transfer can still be materially adverse where it significantly diminishes the employee's responsibilities.

Yanowitz v. L’Oreal USA, Inc.

January 1, 2005
An employee engages in protected activity by opposing conduct she reasonably and in good faith believes is unlawful under the FEHA, even without using magic words or filing a formal complaint. For the adverse-action element, the FEHA reaches employer actions that materially and adversely affect the terms, conditions,…

Reeves v. Safeway Stores: California’s Cat’s-Paw Rule for Retaliatory Discharge

July 29, 2004
California's leading “cat's paw” decision. A 29-year Safeway food clerk who complained that his female coworkers were being sexually harassed was fired after a trivial bathroom-door confrontation was escalated into “workplace violence” by a resentful store manager and a one-sided security investigation, then rubber-stamped by a district manager who had never heard of his complaints. The Court of Appeal reversed summary judgment, holding that a biased supervisor's animus is a but-for cause that imputes to the employer through the “cat's paw” it uses to carry out the firing.

Akers v. County of San Diego — defining the adverse employment action in FEHA retaliation claims

February 8, 2002
Affirming a retaliation verdict for a former deputy district attorney, the Court of Appeal held that FEHA retaliation requires a substantial and material adverse effect on the terms and conditions of employment — a test satisfied where undeserved accusations of dishonesty and incompetence destroyed the prosecutor's promotability even without a firing, demotion, or lost pay.

Richards v. CH2M Hill, Inc.

August 23, 2001
The continuing-violation doctrine applies to FEHA claims: an employer’s related unlawful acts are treated as a single continuing violation — and the limitations period does not begin to run — so long as the conduct is sufficiently similar and frequent and has not yet acquired a degree of permanence that should put the…

Aguilar v. Atlantic Richfield Co.

June 14, 2001
A defendant moving for summary judgment bears the burden of showing that a cause of action has no merit — that one or more elements cannot be established or that there is a complete defense — by either conclusively negating an element or showing the plaintiff does not possess, and cannot reasonably obtain, evidence to…

Clark County School District v. Breeden: “Very Close” Temporal Proximity and the Limits of Retaliation’s Most-Cited Defense Authority

April 23, 2001
The Supreme Court's per curiam reversal holds that no reasonable person could believe a single offhand exchange violated Title VII and that timing alone proves retaliatory causation only when the employer's knowledge and the adverse action are "very close" — the twin rules that now anchor nearly every FEHA retaliation summary judgment motion.

Morgan v. Regents of University of California: The Continuing-Violation Doctrine and the Significant-Participant Rule

November 30, 2000
An African-American electronic technician laid off in a budget cut applied for dozens of university jobs, was hired for none, and sued under the FEHA for retaliation. Affirming summary judgment, the Court of Appeal held that a string of rejections by different managers in unrelated departments is a series of isolated decisions, not a “continuing violation” — and that retaliatory remarks by HR staff who took no part in the hiring cannot establish causation, because every actual decisionmaker disclaimed knowledge of the protected grievance.

Morillion v. Royal Packing Co.: The Two Independent Definitions of “Hours Worked” and Compensable Compulsory Travel Time

March 27, 2000
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.

Iwekaogwu v. City of Los Angeles — Proving Retaliatory Motive with Direct and Comparative Evidence

October 13, 1999
Affirming a remitted $500,000 FEHA retaliation judgment for a Nigerian-American harbor-department engineer, the Second District held that pretext may be shown by direct evidence of decisionmakers' retaliatory remarks and by comparative evidence of disparate treatment — not only by a head-on attack on the employer's stated performance reasons — and that lay testimony alone can support a substantial emotional-distress award.

Ramirez v. Yosemite Water Co.

June 17, 1999
The outside-salesperson exemption is determined by a fact-specific inquiry into how the employee actually spends his or her time, not merely the employer’s job description or expectations; California uses its own quantitative standard (more than half the time engaged in outside sales) rather than importing the federal…

Tidewater Marine Western, Inc. v. Bradshaw

December 19, 1996
The DLSE’s interpretive policies constitute regulations and are void because they were not adopted under the Administrative Procedure Act (the “underground regulation” rule); nevertheless, the agency properly exercised enforcement jurisdiction, and the IWC wage orders apply to the work at issue, so the trial court…

General Dynamics Corp. v. Superior Court

July 18, 1994
General Dynamics Corp. v. Superior Court In-house counsel may sue for wrongful termination — both on an implied-in-fact contract theory and, within limits, a Tameny public-policy theory — even though a client may generally discharge its lawyer at will. General Dynamics Corp. v. Superior Court (1994) 7 Cal.4th 1164 Parallel citations: 876 P.2d 487; 32 […]

Gantt v. Sentry Insurance

February 27, 1992
The discharge stated an actionable Tameny claim and was not preempted by the workers’-compensation law (id. at p. 1085). More durably, the court held that the public policy underpinning a Tameny claim must be “tethered to” specific constitutional or statutory provisions, not merely the court’s own notions of sound…

Flait v. North American Watch Corp. — a supervisor’s opposition to harassment of a subordinate is protected activity

February 6, 1992
In a foundational FEHA retaliation opinion, the Court of Appeal held that a supervisor who confronts a fellow manager over sexual harassment of a subordinate engages in protected activity based on a reasonable, good-faith belief — whether or not harassment is ultimately proved — and reversed summary adjudication where the confronted harasser himself made the termination decision four months later.

S.G. Borello & Sons v. Department of Industrial Relations: California’s Multifactor Control Test for Independent-Contractor Status

March 23, 1989
S.G. Borello & Sons, Inc. v. Department of Industrial Relations (1989) 48 Cal.3d 341 sets California’s multifactor control test for employee vs. independent-contractor status — the right to control the manner and means of the work, plus secondary factors, applied in light of the statute’s protective purpose. It still governs the Assembly Bill 5 exemptions after Dynamex.
For practitioners

Practice guides

Each guide gathers and summarizes the controlling cases and authorities on a single question — a research starting point you can cite from.

Practice guideRetaliation under Lab. Code § 1102.5A practitioner’s synthesis of the controlling cases and authorities.Practice guideFEHA discrimination & the McDonnell Douglas testA practitioner’s synthesis of the controlling cases and authorities.Practice guideTermination in violation of public policyA practitioner’s synthesis of the controlling cases and authorities.Practice guideCompelling arbitration of FEHA claimsA practitioner’s synthesis of the controlling cases and authorities.Practice guideDisability discrimination & reasonable accommodationA practitioner’s synthesis of the controlling cases and authorities.Practice guideSexual harassment under FEHAA practitioner’s synthesis of the controlling cases and authorities.Practice guideOff-the-clock work & compensable hours workedA practitioner’s synthesis of the controlling cases and authorities.Practice guideMeal & rest breaks & premium payA practitioner’s synthesis of the controlling cases and authorities.Practice guideWage & hour class actions & PAGAA practitioner’s synthesis of the controlling cases and authorities.Practice guideIndependent-contractor misclassification & the ABC testA practitioner’s synthesis of the controlling cases and authorities.