California employment case index

California's fee-default statutes have become the most-used route out of employer-drafted arbitration, and in August 2025 the Supreme Court rewrote how they work. Code of Civil Procedure sections 1281.97 and 1281.98 still declare that a drafting party who pays the arbitrator more than 30 days late is in material breach, in default, and has waived its right to compel arbitration. But in Hohenshelt v. Superior Court the court held, 5-2, that this scheme survives FAA preemption only on a construction that leaves intact the background relief-from-forfeiture provisions — Code of Civil Procedure section 473, subdivision (b) and Civil Code sections 3275 and 1511 — so that the loss of the arbitral forum follows only from nonpayment that was willful, grossly negligent, or fraudulent. Mandatory monetary sanctions under section 1281.99, subdivision (a) still follow automatically. This synthesis sets out the operative statutory text and credit lines, traces the eleven Court of Appeal decisions the Supreme Court disapproved, states the post-Hohenshelt rule as a four-step sequence, shows how the first published application (Wilson v. Tap Worldwide) deployed it as an as-applied preemption argument, and identifies what remains open — including whether the same construction governs section 1281.97.

Government Code section 12940, subdivision (n) makes it unlawful to fail to engage in a timely, good faith interactive process, and an employee may sue on that practice alone. The received wisdom that California courts are split on whether such a plaintiff must also prove an available accommodation has not been accurate since 2009. This analysis traces the rule from Claudio through Wysinger, Nadaf-Rahrov and Scotch to Shirvanyan, isolates the two words that carry the element, and sets out exactly what must be proved, by whom, and as of when.

FEHA defines both mental and physical disability to include being regarded or treated by the employer as having a condition that makes achievement of a major life activity difficult, and the Legislature enacted those paragraphs by number, expressly notwithstanding Cassista. Gelfo held that the only question under the prong is what the employer believed — no actual disability, no mistake, no myths-or-stereotypes showing — and, breaking with the federal authority then controlling in the Eighth and Ninth Circuits, that a perceived-disability plaintiff is owed reasonable accommodation and the interactive process. Wallace removed animosity from the elements and refused to let an honest mistake count as a legitimate reason; Soria extended the prong to conditions that are merely potentially disabling. What the prong does not do is lower the definitional floor, which is where Higgins-Williams sits — and, as this analysis shows, where the real contest now is.

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.

A 305-pound applicant rejected by a Santa Cruz health food collective sued under the FEHA, alleging she was regarded as physically handicapped because of her weight. The California Supreme Court held that weight may qualify as a protected disability only where medical evidence shows it results from a physiological condition affecting a basic bodily system and limits a major life activity, and that this plaintiff – who maintained she was healthy and fit – had proved no such thing. Government Code section 12926.1 now names the case and disclaims several of its interpretations.