California employment case index

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.

A unanimous California Supreme Court fixes the two-step framework for the duty to protect against third-party harm — special relationship first, the Rowland policy factors only to limit it — the controlling analysis for negligent hiring, supervision, and retention claims against employers.

Reeves v. Sanderson Plumbing Products, Inc.A plaintiff’s prima facie case combined with sufficient evidence that the employer’s stated reason is false can, without more, sustain a finding of intentional discrimination.Reeves v. Sanderson Plumbing Products, Inc. (2000) 530 U.S. 133Parallel citations: 120 S.Ct. 2097; 147 L.Ed.2d 105. Supreme Court of the United States. Argued March 21, […]

In McKennon v. Nashville Banner Publishing Co. (1995) 513 U.S. 352, a 62-year-old secretary discharged in what the employer conceded for summary-judgment purposes was age discrimination admitted in deposition that she had copied confidential company documents during her final year. The lower courts held this after-acquired evidence barred all ADEA relief. A unanimous Supreme Court, per Justice Kennedy, reversed. Such evidence does not bar liability — the ADEA violation that prompted the discharge cannot be disregarded — but it bears on the remedy: as a general rule it forecloses reinstatement and front pay, and back pay runs only from the date of the unlawful discharge to the date the employer discovered the wrongdoing. And the employer must first prove the wrongdoing was so severe that it would in fact have discharged the employee on that ground alone.

In Western Air Lines, Inc. v. Criswell (1985) 472 U.S. 400, the Supreme Court adopted the two-part age-BFOQ test for the Age Discrimination in Employment Act: the age limit must be reasonably necessary to the essence of the employer's business, and the employer must show either reasonable cause to believe that all or substantially all older workers cannot perform the job safely or that it is impossible or highly impractical to assess older employees individually. The Court rejected a deferential “rational basis” standard.