California employment case index

A trucking-job applicant brought an FCRA class action over confusing, noncompliant background-check disclosure forms; after Limon v. Circle K required concrete injury, the trial court decertified the class. The First District reverses and declines to follow Limon: California courts are not bound by Article III, and a willful FCRA violation supports statutory damages of $100–$1,000 and standing without proof of harm.

A work practice apprentice at one of North America’s largest Soto Zen Buddhist temples conceded she was a minister, sued only for the minimum and overtime wages she had already earned, and lost on summary judgment to the First Amendment ministerial exception. Division Five of the First District reversed on two independent grounds. The exception, it held, bars only those employment claims that necessarily require an inquiry into matters of a religious entity’s internal government closely linked to its faith and doctrine — and the Center never explained how a minimum-wage claim required one, conceding in its brief that adjudicating the case raised no ecclesiastical question. Separately, because the Labor Commissioner had found two individuals liable as the employer under Labor Code section 558.1, each of them had to post an undertaking under section 98.2 to perfect a de novo appeal; neither did, so the trial court had no jurisdiction over their appeals. The California Supreme Court granted review on February 11, 2026, limited to the ministerial-exception question, but denied depublication and directed that the opinion may still be cited both for its persuasive value and to establish a conflict in authority. This analysis sets out the Court’s own issue statement, what the Court of Appeal actually held and on what evidence, and exactly how much weight the opinion carries while review is pending.

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.