California employment case index

A produce-plant forklift driver was fired after complaining his pay lagged behind coworkers’. He wrongly believed the Equal Pay Act reached the gap — but the Fourth District holds his mistake of law does not sink his Labor Code section 1102.5(b) whistleblower verdict, because the statute asks only whether he had objectively reasonable cause to believe a violation occurred, a question for the jury.

A sheriff’s deputy proved every element of his whistleblower retaliation claim — and still left the courthouse owing costs. The jury found his protected disclosures were a factor in the County’s actions against him, but also that the County would have made the same decisions anyway. Division Four held that a plaintiff defeated by the section 1102.6 same-decision defense who obtains no relief has not brought a “successful action” under section 1102.5(j): no attorney’s fees, and the employer is the prevailing party for costs. The panel declined to extend Harris v. City of Santa Monica’s FEHA rule, agreed the contrary result would be “a rational policy choice,” and pointedly left the fix to the Legislature.

Inglewood’s elected city treasurer accused the mayor of misappropriating public funds, then saw her monthly salary cut from $8,000 to $1,404 and her duties stripped away. Her whistleblower retaliation suit under Labor Code section 1102.5 failed at the threshold: a unanimous Supreme Court held that elected officials are not “employees” within section 1106’s definition. Finding the statutory text inconclusive, the court rested on legislative history and context — section 1106 protects rank-and-file public workers, not officials who answer to the electorate — while noting that other remedies, including the First Amendment, may remain available.

The First District held that an employer's same-decision showing under Labor Code § 1102.6 is a complete defense to a § 1102.5 whistleblower claim — barring declaratory relief and attorney's fees along with damages — expressly declining to import Harris v. City of Santa Monica's FEHA partial-defense rule.

People ex rel. Garcia-Brower v. Kolla’s, Inc.A protected “disclosure” under Labor Code section 1102.5(b) includes an employee’s report or complaint of a legal violation to an employer — even when the recipient already knows of the violation.People ex rel. Garcia-Brower v. Kolla’s, Inc. (2023) 14 Cal.5th 719Parallel citations: 529 P.3d 49; 308 Cal.Rptr.3d 388. Supreme […]

Months after Lawson, the Third District affirmed summary judgment for the County of Sacramento under Labor Code § 1102.6 — undisputed evidence of insubordination, disrespect, and dishonesty proved clearly and convincingly that the county would have released the probationary employee anyway — while leaving open whether § 1102.5 requires an actual belief that the law was violated.

Reversing summary judgment for the UC Regents, the Second District mapped the post-Lawson landscape — Labor Code § 1102.6 governs § 1102.5 claims, Government Code § 8547.10(e) supplies the same framework for University of California whistleblowers, and McDonnell Douglas still governs Health and Safety Code § 1278.5 claims, under which Scheer's clause-by-clause dismantling of his termination letter raised a triable issue of pretext.

The California Supreme Court holds that Labor Code §1102.6 — not McDonnell Douglas — governs §1102.5 whistleblower-retaliation claims: the employee need only show protected activity was a contributing factor, shifting to the employer the clear-and-convincing burden of proving it would have acted the same anyway.

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.

Satyadi v. West Contra Costa Healthcare District An employee need not exhaust the Labor Commissioner’s administrative remedy before bringing a civil whistleblower-retaliation action; the 2013 enactment of Labor Code sections 244 and 98.7, subdivision (g), merely clarified existing law. Satyadi v. West Contra Costa Healthcare District (2014) 232 Cal.App.4th 1022 Parallel citation: 182 Cal.Rptr.3d 21. […]

A school-district maintenance supervisor, fired after a sustained pattern of insubordination, computer misuse, and retaliation against co-workers, claimed his discharge was really payback for whistleblowing about District construction projects. The Third District affirmed the denial of his mandamus petition, applying the Supreme Court's then-new decision in Harris v. City of Santa Monica to hold that an employer may invoke the same-decision showing without conceding mixed motives, and that untainted misconduct alone justified termination — making the protected-activity question unnecessary to decide.

A Recology supervisor who reported CRV weight-tag fraud to police and the company's board survived summary judgment: the Court of Appeal held Labor Code section 1102.5 protects reports of illegal conduct by fellow employees and third parties — not just the employer's own violations — and revived his False Claims Act and Tameny claims.

The First District reversed a defense verdict for instructional error, holding a whistleblower's motive irrelevant and reasonable-belief reports of unlawful policies protected even where debatable — but its further rule that reporting “publicly known” information is not a disclosure was later rejected by the Supreme Court in Kolla's, and the article maps what survives.

Jaramillo v. County of Orange A peace officer’s warnings to his own boss about the boss’s illegal conduct are protected whistleblowing under Labor Code section 1102.5; blanket POBRA waivers are invalid; and after-acquired evidence of unrelated crimes does not retroactively defeat a wrongful-discharge backpay award. Jaramillo v. County of Orange (2011) 200 Cal.App.4th 811 Parallel […]

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.

When a whistleblowing high-school principal was moved to a smaller, quieter school at identical pay, title, and job description, the Third District held that the Yanowitz “materiality” standard for an adverse employment action — built for FEHA retaliation — governs a Labor Code section 1102.5(b) whistleblower claim too, and that a same-pay transfer can still be materially adverse where it significantly diminishes the employee's responsibilities.

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.

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. 133 Parallel citations: 120 S.Ct. 2097; 147 L.Ed.2d 105. Supreme Court of the United States. […]

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.