California employment case index

The California Supreme Court holds that CCP §1281.98's arbitration-fee-payment forfeiture rule is not preempted by the FAA — but, rejecting the rigid automatic-forfeiture reading, only where a late payment is willful, grossly negligent, or fraudulent rather than a good-faith mistake or excusable neglect.

In Naranjo II (2024) 15 Cal.5th 1056, the California Supreme Court holds that an employer’s objectively reasonable, good-faith belief that its wage statements complied with the law defeats both Labor Code § 226 penalties (no “knowing and intentional” violation) and § 203 waiting-time penalties (no “willful” failure) — harmonizing the two penalty statutes around a common good-faith defense.

Analysis · Key Case Cvejic v. Skyview Capital, LLC (2023) 92 Cal.App.5th 1073 Court of Appeal, Second Appellate District, Division Eight · Docket No. B318880 · Decided June 28, 2023 Verify before relying. A summary and analysis as of its publication date — not legal advice, and not a representation that the decision remains good […]

Naranjo v. Spectrum Security Services, Inc. (Naranjo I) Premium pay owed for missed meal and rest breaks under Labor Code section 226.7 constitutes “wages,” so it must be reported on wage statements under section 226 and is subject to waiting-time penalties under section 203 when not timely paid at separation. Naranjo v. Spectrum Security Services, […]

Age discrimination in violation of the FEHA supports a common-law claim for wrongful discharge in violation of public policy. When a plaintiff relies on a statutory prohibition to support such a claim, the common-law claim is subject to the statute’s substantive limits (the nature and scope of the prohibition) but not…

Nine days after Fatmeh Badih told her employer — a physician with fewer than five employees — that she was pregnant, her last day was set; the DFEH would not even accept her complaint because the office was too small for the FEHA. Division One of the First District affirmed her wrongful-discharge verdict anyway, holding that pregnancy discrimination is a form of sex discrimination under article I, section 8 of the California Constitution, whose fundamental public policy against sex discrimination in employment binds every employer regardless of size. Jennings v. Marralle was distinguished, not disturbed: age has no constitutional anchor, but sex — and therefore pregnancy — does. Badih remains the pleading answer for pregnancy discharges at California's smallest workplaces.

General Dynamics Corp. v. Superior Court In-house counsel may sue for wrongful termination — both on an implied-in-fact contract theory and, within limits, a Tameny public-policy theory — even though a client may generally discharge its lawyer at will. General Dynamics Corp. v. Superior Court (1994) 7 Cal.4th 1164 Parallel citations: 876 P.2d 487; 32 […]

The discharge stated an actionable Tameny claim and was not preempted by the workers’-compensation law (id. at p. 1085). More durably, the court held that the public policy underpinning a Tameny claim must be “tethered to” specific constitutional or statutory provisions, not merely the court’s own notions of sound…