California employment case index

Luis Betanco delivered Living Spaces furniture from the retailer's California distribution centers to California customers and never crossed a state line. In a published decision filed June 25, 2026, the First District held he is still a 'transportation worker' exempt from the Federal Arbitration Act, because he was actively engaged in the interstate transportation of goods even though he made retail — not wholesale — deliveries. The furniture was inevitably destined from the outset of its interstate journey to his customers, so it never left the interstate stream even though it paused in a California warehouse. Because the FAA does not reach a section 1-exempt worker, Labor Code section 229 kept his statutory wage claims in court, and his representative PAGA claims survived under Adolph v. Uber Technologies. The order was affirmed.

Nine hospital-system employees sought religious exemptions from a COVID-19 vaccination requirement and sued under Title VII when they were denied. The Ninth Circuit affirms judgment for the employer: after Groff v. DeJoy, undue hardship means a “substantial” burden — including realistic health, safety, and staffing costs — and exempting unvaccinated clinical staff during the Delta surge met that standard.

Marshalls moved to compel arbitration of the individual component of a single-count PAGA action under a 2014 arbitration agreement, relying on Viking River. Division Four affirmed the denial on pure contract grounds: the parties would have had to be clairvoyant to anticipate a distinction the Supreme Court would not draw for another eight years. The court expressly declined to enter the headless-PAGA dispute, and the authoring justice wrote separately at length questioning whether Viking River's federally imposed claim-splitting rule is constitutionally sound.

Lauren Brown filed the fifth of five overlapping PAGA actions against the same restaurant operator. While her case sat stayed, the employer settled globally with an earlier plaintiff, and the trial court then granted judgment on the pleadings. Division Eight affirmed. The only contested question it reached was whether the settling plaintiff's failure to wait the full 65 days after her amended agency notice destroyed the settlement's preclusive effect – and the court held it did not, because nothing extends the waiting period to amended notices and the agency itself had accepted the settlement. Brown also lacked standing for violations postdating her 2018 separation.

World Vision revoked a job offer to a customer-service applicant after learning she was in a same-sex marriage. The Ninth Circuit held the ministerial exception barred her Title VII and WLAD claims, because — viewed in the context of World Vision’s religious mission — CSRs perform “vital religious duties” by communicating the faith and praying with donors. A striking extension of the exception’s functional reach to an entry-level, remote position.

Marlean Ames, a heterosexual woman, lost a promotion to a lesbian candidate, then was demoted and replaced by a gay man. The Sixth Circuit threw out her Title VII case because she had not shown “background circumstances” suggesting her employer was the unusual one that discriminates against the majority. A unanimous Supreme Court vacated: Title VII protects “any individual,” and its prima facie standard does not vary with the plaintiff’s group. Justice Thomas, joined by Justice Gorsuch, concurred to question whether McDonnell Douglas belongs at summary judgment at all — an invitation with consequences for FEHA practice under Guz.

A Postmaster of Chinese ethnicity was demoted after coworkers targeted her with complaints her supervisor believed were racially motivated, and the demotion was confirmed by an official who reviewed only the paperwork. The Ninth Circuit reversed summary judgment, holding that replacement by a white man satisfied the McDonnell Douglas fourth element and that a genuine dispute existed over whether the confirming decision was “actually independent or influenced by subordinate bias” — a Ninth Circuit application of the cat’s-paw doctrine.

Does every PAGA action contain an individual claim an employer can compel to arbitration? The split the California Supreme Court will resolve.

The Ninth Circuit reversed summary judgment for the Bureau of Prisons, holding that a corrections lieutenant’s off-duty Instagram page targeting a prison psychologist — followed by more than a hundred coworkers — is part of the totality of the circumstances in a Title VII hostile-work-environment claim. There is no rule that only conduct inside the physical workplace counts, ‘especially in light of the ubiquity of social media,’ and the employer’s dismissive, ineffectual response can independently create a hostile environment.

Muldrow v. City of St. LouisA Title VII plaintiff challenging a discriminatory job transfer must show only “some harm” to a term or condition of employment — not a “significant” or “material” disadvantage.Muldrow v. City of St. Louis (2024) 601 U.S. 346Parallel citations: 144 S.Ct. 967; 218 L.Ed.2d 322. Supreme Court of the United States. […]

Between Viking River in June 2022 and Adolph in July 2023, federal courts across California dismissed the non-individual half of PAGA cases for want of standing, on the United States Supreme Court's reading of California law. In Johnson the Ninth Circuit says what to do about those dismissals while the case is still on appeal: affirm the order compelling arbitration of the individual PAGA claim, vacate the dismissal of the non-individual claims – not because the district court erred, but because the California Supreme Court has since corrected the state-law premise – and remand so the district court can apply Adolph. The panel also rejected the argument that Adolph cannot be reconciled with Viking River. Judge Lee concurred to flag what he called a lurking tension between Adolph's bifurcation procedure and the Federal Arbitration Act: if an arbitrator's findings in a low-stakes individual arbitration can bind in a high-stakes representative action, the economics of arbitration change. He saw no irreconcilable conflict on these facts, and explained why – which is also a map of how the argument will be made next time.

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.

Adolph v. Uber Technologies, Inc. (2023) 14 Cal.5th 1104 holds that a PAGA plaintiff whose individual claims are compelled to arbitration retains standing as an “aggrieved employee” to litigate the non-individual representative claims in court — California’s answer to the standing question left open by Viking River.

An Evangelical Christian postal worker who would not work Sundays sued under Title VII after being disciplined for declining Sunday Amazon deliveries. The Third Circuit, reading Hardison to require only 'more than a de minimis cost,' affirmed summary judgment for the employer. A unanimous Supreme Court vacated and clarified the standard: an employer that denies a religious accommodation must show that granting it would result in substantial increased costs in relation to the conduct of its particular business, not merely a more-than-trivial cost.

Eight warehouse workers alleged their employer let staff blast “sexually graphic, violently misogynistic” music for nearly two years over almost daily complaints. The Ninth Circuit vacated a Rule 12(b)(6) dismissal, holding that pervasive sexist content can create a Title VII hostile work environment even if it targets no one and offends both sexes — and that an employer’s “equal opportunity harasser” status “provides no escape hatch for liability.”

The FAA preempts Iskanian to the extent it bars division of a PAGA action and prevents arbitration of an employee’s individual PAGA claim; an employer may compel the individual PAGA claim to arbitration. (The Supreme Court further opined that, under its reading of California law, the plaintiff would then lack standing…

An employer that fires an individual merely for being gay or transgender violates Title VII. Discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity necessarily entails discrimination because of sex, because it is impossible to discriminate against a person for being gay or transgender without taking the…

Settling and dismissing individual Labor Code claims does not strip an employee of standing to pursue a PAGA claim. PAGA standing depends on being an “aggrieved employee” — someone employed by the alleged violator against whom one or more Labor Code violations were committed — not on maintaining an unredressed…