California employment case index

An employee with an undisclosed bipolar diagnosis was fired after two episodes of erratic, irrational behavior at work, then sued Target under FEHA. The Second District affirms summary judgment: employer knowledge is a prerequisite to FEHA disability liability, and it is imputed only when disability is the “only reasonable interpretation” of the conduct — not where intoxication, medication, or sleep deprivation could equally explain it.

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.

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.

The University of California refuses to employ undocumented students who lack federal work authorization. The First District held that the policy facially discriminates based on immigration status under the FEHA national-origin regulations, and that the University’s only justification — fear that the federal government might read IRCA to cover it and prosecute — could not sustain the policy, because the University never attempted the regulation’s clear-and-convincing showing that federal law requires the discrimination. The court issued a writ directing the Regents to reconsider the policy on proper criteria, while pointedly declining to decide whether IRCA applies to state entities at all.

Must a California employer accommodate an employee who is not disabled but who cares for someone who is? Castro-Ramirez said in 2016 that FEHA “may reasonably be interpreted” to require it — and expressly declined to decide. Nine years on, no published California decision has answered, the Civil Rights Council’s 2020 request for public input produced no regulation, and CACI 2547 still calls the element optional. Meanwhile five federal district courts — Castro v. Classy, McVay, and 2025’s Acosta, Head, and De Wit — have all held that failure-to-accommodate and interactive-process claims may rest on associational disability. This analysis maps the statutory argument, the unpublished contrary authority, and how to plead the caregiver’s claim while the question stays open.

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.

After a harbor patrol officer’s on-duty accident left him unable to work, the Port San Luis Harbor District told him retirement was his “single option” — then denied his CalPERS disability-retirement application and terminated him on a resignation theory it later admitted was false. Division Six affirmed summary judgment on his FEHA claim anyway: denial of disability-retirement payments is not an adverse employment action, because retirement benefits begin when employment ends, and a claimant who cannot perform his essential duties is not a “qualified individual” under Green. The remedy for a wrongful denial is an appeal to the Office of Administrative Hearings and administrative mandamus — a route Lowry lost by following a repealed procedure.

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.

Charter’s mandatory arbitration agreement directed employees’ claims into arbitration while carving out the claims Charter itself would bring, compressed FEHA filing to the one-year administrative window, and made anyone who unsuccessfully resisted arbitration pay the fees incurred to compel it. The Supreme Court held all three terms substantively unconscionable — but validated the four-deposition discovery cap, disapproving the line of cases that judged discovery limits by a particular plaintiff’s later needs. On remedy, the court rejected clause-counting: severance is a qualitative, totality inquiry under Armendariz, and the refusal to enforce was reversed and remanded for that analysis.

In Hoglund v. Sierra Nevada Memorial-Miners Hospital (2024) 102 Cal.App.5th 56, a 62-year-old hospital laboratory supervisor won a bench verdict for FEHA age discrimination, harassment, and wrongful termination after her director made years of ageist remarks and steered her selection for layoff. The Court of Appeal affirmed. Applying the “cat's-paw” (imputed-animus) theory, it held that a biased subordinate's discriminatory motive may be imputed to the employer where the subordinate was a “significant participant” in the adverse decision — even though a separate, formally unbiased officer signed off on the final call. Animus by a significant participant supports an inference that the decision itself was discriminatory.

In the first California decision to articulate the elements of a reasonable-accommodation claim under the Pregnancy Disability Leave Law (Gov. Code, § 12945, subd. (a)(3)(A)), the Court of Appeal held that a plaintiff must prove a pregnancy-related condition, a request made on her health care provider's advice, the employer's refusal of a reasonable accommodation, and that she could perform the essential functions of the job with that accommodation. Although section 12945 affords protections over and above section 12940, none entitles an employee to a job she cannot perform. Judgment for the employer affirmed.

A unanimous Court of Appeal reversed summary judgment for Kaiser, holding that even though the employer granted every accommodation the employee requested, it could still be liable for failing to accommodate and failing to engage in the interactive process because, through her supervisor, it knew of but never provided a needed lighter-tasks accommodation. The court also reinstated the disability-discrimination and retaliation claims on a cat’s-paw theory.

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.

When a medical resident sues her residency program for discrimination, the program's 'academic' justification for dismissing her is not entitled to the deference courts extend to genuine academic judgments. The Second District held that a resident is predominantly an employee, not a student, so the jury must evaluate the program's real reason without deference — and the contrary instruction required a new trial.

An employer cannot rebut a discrimination plaintiff’s prima facie case by professing ignorance: stage-two production under McDonnell Douglas demands the actual nondiscriminatory reason for a failure to interview, not a witness’s “I don’t know.”

In the Sixth District's treatise-level employment-MSJ opinion, a security supervisor laid off days before his expected return from knee surgery revives his disability discrimination and wrongful termination claims — the employer's RIF showing was inadequate under Guz's "roadmap" because it never explained retaining two lower-ranked supervisors, and its failure to accommodate, the timing, and an overpayment vendetta were substantial evidence of animus — while the retaliation claim fails because pre-2016 accommodation requests were not protected activity.

The Court of Appeal held that a plaintiff suing for failure to engage in the interactive process under Government Code section 12940, subdivision (n) must prove a reasonable accommodation was actually available. Substantial evidence supported finite leave as an available accommodation for the plaintiff’s carpal-tunnel (wrist) injury, but none supported any accommodation for her later shoulder injury. Because the general verdict did not reveal which disability the jury relied on, the judgment was reversed for a limited retrial.

A 60-year-old engineer cut in a 306-person, budget-driven layoff lost on both procedure and merits: his EEOC and post-closure DFEH amendments could not exhaust class and disparate-impact theories, and his pretext case failed for want of combined-position qualifications, controlled statistics, and comparators.

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.

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…

Affirming a judgment for a disabled grocery checker on her FEHA failure-to-accommodate claim, the Court of Appeal held that the duty to engage in the interactive process (Gov. Code, § 12940, subd. (n)) and the duty to provide a reasonable accommodation (id., subd. (m)) are separate, independent claims; an employer cannot graft the interactive process onto, and thereby excuse, a later failure to deliver an accommodation it had already granted. The court also held the failure-to-accommodate statute contains no “pattern of failure” requirement, so a single lapse is actionable, with triviality a jury question.

To recover for failure to engage in the interactive process, an employee must identify a reasonable accommodation that was available at the time the interactive process should have occurred; because Scotch did not identify such an available accommodation, he could not recover on that claim.

Fired the day she returned from pregnancy-related bed rest, a caregiver defeated summary judgment with declarations from four coworkers describing pregnancy-triggered firings by the same supervisors — evidence the court held admissible as a matter of law to prove motive, not propensity.

A 64-year-old superior-court commissioner, passed over for a full-time post in favor of a 43-year-old after the presiding judge said the court wanted “somebody younger, maybe in their 40's,” sued for age discrimination under the FEHA. The Court of Appeal reversed summary judgment, holding a superior court has no discretionary-act immunity against FEHA suits and that the presiding judge's remarks were direct evidence whose animus could taint a multilevel hiring decision under the cat's-paw doctrine.

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.

The decision clarified the reasonable-accommodation burdens: an employee claiming failure to accommodate by reassignment must show a vacant position existed for which she was qualified, while the allocation of proof tracks who has access to the relevant information; on this record, triable issues precluded summary…

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…

Carlos Arteaga, a messenger on Brink’s armored trucks, first told the company about pain and numbness in his arms and fingers — and filed workers’ compensation claims — while Brink’s was investigating a string of cash shortages on his ATM runs; he was terminat

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.

A White news anchor’s claim that his station’s “on-air style” rationale masked race-conscious hiring failed on summary judgment because the record corroborated the employer’s subjective assessment, and his sole contrary showing — that the executive lied about counseling him — could not alone support the inference that race was the real reason.

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).

The FEHA does not require an employer to accommodate an employee’s use of medical marijuana. The Compassionate Use Act did not address the rights and duties of employers and employees, and under California law an employer may require pre-employment drug testing and may take illegal drug use into account in employment…

Failure to engage in the interactive process is a separate FEHA violation requiring different proof from failure to provide a reasonable accommodation; the two findings are not inconsistent, so a jury may hold an employer liable for failing to engage in the interactive process even while finding no failure to…

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.

The employee bears the burden of proving he or she is a qualified individual under the FEHA — that is, able to perform the essential duties of the position with or without reasonable accommodation — just as the federal ADA requires; it is not the employer’s burden to disprove qualification.

Affirming summary judgment for the employer, the Court of Appeal held that a correctional officer's FEHA claims for sexual harassment, gender and race discrimination, and retaliation all failed because she could not establish a nexus between the conduct and her protected status — asked whether her coworkers' conduct was prompted by gender or race, she “repeatedly answered, 'No' and 'I don't know'” — and could not show a “substantial adverse change in the terms and conditions” of her employment. Her common-law claims for assault, emotional distress, and negligent supervision were barred by workers' compensation exclusivity.

The Third District affirmed summary judgment for UPS on a 30-year supervisor's disability claims, holding that the employer's honest belief in its integrity-violation charge — not the truth of the accusation — controls, and that accommodation claims require a specific request and concrete medical restrictions.

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.

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.

A fire captain who lost his leg sued for disability discrimination after his department barred him from the firefighting “platoon duty” he loved and kept him in an office-style “special duty” assignment. The Court of Appeal affirmed summary judgment for the department, holding the reassignment was not an adverse employment action under the FEHA: the special-duty post carried equal pay, equal promotional opportunity, and substantial overtime, so the captain's complaint was a preference, not a material detriment.

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 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).

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.

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.

Yes. An employer that regards a person as physically disabled must engage in the interactive process and provide reasonable accommodation to that person, even if he or she is not actually disabled; the duty runs to those “regarded as” disabled, not only to the actually disabled (id. at p. 40).

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…

A pregnant marketing VP laid off in a reduction in force wins reversal of summary judgment: the Second District holds the moving employer must present evidence permitting a more-likely-than-not finding that its nondiscriminatory reason actually drove the discharge, and that replacement by a consultant, a decisionmaker's lie, and an evaluation e-mailed hours after her internal complaint made falsity and pregnancy animus triable.

In Claudio v. Regents of University of California (2005) 134 Cal.App.4th 224, the Third District reversed summary judgment, holding that an employee may bring a stand-alone FEHA claim for the employer's failure to engage in the timely, good-faith interactive process required by Government Code section 12940, subdivision (n)—while emphasizing that the process demands good-faith participation by both employer and employee.

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…

Over a Mosk dissent, Division Five holds that a pregnancy-discrimination plaintiff who confided her early pregnancy only to sworn-to-secrecy friends cannot make a prima facie case absent evidence the decisionmaker knew, and that "Not while you are working for me" and post-firing outbursts were not direct evidence bypassing McDonnell Douglas.

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,…

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.

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…

The FEHA requires only that a physiological disease or condition affecting a body system “limit” — not “substantially limit” — the plaintiff’s ability to participate in a major life activity, a standard broader than the federal ADA; the later Poppink Act merely clarified, and did not change, that existing “limits”…

The Sixth District affirmed summary judgment for the City, holding that a five-year pattern of stripping a female employee's coveted technical duties was "a collection of isolated employment decisions" that had acquired permanence by 1996 under Richards v. CH2M Hill — and that a biased supervisor's sexist remarks could not show pretext where he neither knew of her candidacy nor took part in the challenged hiring.

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.

An alleged harasser’s vow to “get revenge” on those who cooperated against her, plus suspiciously timed scrutiny of a star performer’s paperwork, was enough direct and circumstantial evidence of retaliatory motive to defeat summary judgment on a wrongful-termination claim.

Reviewing a demurrer sustained without leave to amend, the Court of Appeal held that an employee stated a cause of action for damages caused by her employer's failure to make reasonable accommodation for her known disability under FEHA. Treating Government Code section 12940, subdivision (m) as a “separate and distinct” unlawful employment practice independent of the disability-discrimination prohibition in subdivision (a), the court rejected the importation of federal ADA limits (the “qualified individual” and adverse-action requirements) and held the FEHA accommodation duty broader than the ADA's, and not barred by workers' compensation exclusivity.

A 62-year-old Bechtel engineer removed from a Saudi project after the Saudi government client called him too old won a FEHA age-discrimination and contract verdict in San Francisco. The Court of Appeal reversed outright, holding that a principal's discriminatory bias cannot be imputed to an innocent agent who merely carries out a foreign sovereign's removal order, and that, absent substantial evidence of the project director's own animus, the verdict could not stand. The contract award separately failed because West, who refused comparable offers and never looked for work, failed to mitigate as a matter of law.

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.

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…

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.

“Academic catfighting or anti-Semitism?” — a professor’s proof that her tenure denial rested on a hidden, forbidden “collegiality” criterion defeated her own FEHA claim, because the same evidence showed the real motive was a colleague’s grudge, not her religion.

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.

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.

In Diffey v. Riverside County Sheriff's Dept. (2000) 84 Cal.App.4th 1031, the Fourth District reversed a verdict for a color-blind deputy applicant and directed judgment for the County, holding that a 'regarded-as' disability claim requires proof that the employer's perception stemmed from a false idea—'myths, fears and stereotypes'—about disability; an employer's accurate assessment of a genuine limitation does not satisfy the perceived-disability prong.

Mandatory employment arbitration of unwaivable statutory claims is permissible only if the agreement provides certain minimum protections — a neutral arbitrator, adequate discovery, a written award subject to limited review, all types of relief otherwise available in court, and no requirement that the employee bear…

In Spitzer v. Good Guys, Inc. (2000) 80 Cal.App.4th 1376, the First District reversed summary judgment on a failure-to-accommodate claim, holding in the published portion that FEHA's reasonable-accommodation duty can require reassigning a disabled employee to a vacant position—an obligation the employer escapes only by showing undue hardship or that no suitable vacancy exists.

A city secretary hired at 62 and let go at 74 during a budget crisis lost her FEHA age-discrimination claim after a bench trial. Affirming, the First District clarified that the McDonnell Douglas burden-shifting framework is a pretrial screening device; at trial it drops from the case, leaving only the ultimate question whether the employer intentionally discriminated, reviewed on appeal for substantial evidence.

In one of California's early decisions defining the scope of an “adverse employment action,” the Court of Appeal borrowed the prevailing federal standard and held the action must be both detrimental and substantial — a material change in the terms of employment. A corrections officer's pleaded grievances (a delayed paycheck, an early job change, one missed overtime payment, interference with an outside credit-union post) failed that test on demurrer. The opinion was certified for partial publication; the citable holdings live in published parts 6 and 7.