California employment case index

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.

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.

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.

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;…

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.

A truck driver fired for refusing a shift that would have stopped him from administering his disabled son’s dialysis raised triable issues of associational disability discrimination and retaliation under FEHA — because association with a disabled person is itself a protected disability.

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.”

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.

Applying Harris v. City of Santa Monica to a pregnancy-leave retaliation verdict, the Court of Appeal held the old “a motivating reason” instructions were prejudicial error — and that an employer who never pleads the same-decision defense forfeits it. The judgment and fee award were reversed.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.