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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4 cases

Schachter v. Citigroup: Forfeiture of Unvested Incentive Comp

November 2, 2009
Citigroup let employees take part of their annual compensation as discounted restricted stock vesting only after two years; an employee who resigned early forfeited both the shares and the pay used to buy them. The California Supreme Court affirmed summary judgment for the company, holding that no earned wages remained unpaid on resignation. The decision agrees that restricted stock is a wage – so it turns on when incentive compensation is earned, not on characterization – and expressly refuses to extend Suastez's pro rata vacation-vesting rule to voluntary incentive programs.

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…

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.

Chuang v. UC Davis — The Ninth Circuit Pretext Playbook

August 30, 2000
A world-class AIDS researcher — the only full-time, non-Caucasian faculty member in his department, and the only one without a tenured (FTE) position — was promised a tenure line for over a decade while the university gave the openings to others, then had his