The Review · Case Index

California employment case index

Search every indexed California wrongful-termination and employment decision, or browse by subject area, statute, and decade — each summary source-verified against the published reporter.

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Statute

3 cases

Gattuso v. Harte-Hanks Shoppers: § 2802 Expense-Reimbursement Methods

November 5, 2007
Harte-Hanks paid outside sales representatives higher salaries and commission rates than inside representatives and treated the difference as reimbursement for their automobile expenses. The California Supreme Court held the practice permissible in principle, but only where the employer establishes a means to identify which portion of overall compensation is intended as reimbursement and that portion fully covers expenses actually and necessarily incurred. Section 2804 bars any agreement that waives full reimbursement – a holding that unravelled the trial court's denial of class certification.

Public Employee Exhaustion of Judicial Remedies and the Collateral-Estoppel Trap: Westlake, Johnson v. City of Loma Linda, and Page

November 3, 2004
Three different doctrines collide in public-sector termination cases, and collapsing them is the most expensive mistake in this corner of California employment law. Exhaustion of administrative remedies is a prerequisite to suing at all. Exhaustion of judicial remedies is the separate Westlake requirement that an employee who has already lost before a personnel board overturn that decision by administrative mandamus under Code of Civil Procedure section 1094.5 before suing on the same facts. And collateral estoppel is what happens if the employee does not: the agency's findings become final and bind. Johnson v. City of Loma Linda extended the rule to FEHA while holding it inapplicable to Title VII, Page applied it on demurrer, and Skelly supplies the due-process floor the agency hearing must meet. This analysis keeps the three apart, states what each anchor actually held and how it was disposed of, and sets out the sequencing obligation a practitioner owes a public-employee client at intake.