California employment case index

A firm filed a wage-and-hour class action duplicating one it had already filed elsewhere, then opposed a stay with a brief — drafted by a contract attorney using generative AI — full of nonexistent citations and at least eight fabricated quotations. The First District affirms $6,000 in section 128.7 sanctions: counsel of record bear ultimate responsibility for what they sign, and the duty to verify authority cannot be delegated to any form of technology.

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.

Tipped employees won preliminary certification of a nationwide FLSA collective in Arizona, and the district court authorised notice to out-of-state servers because one Arizona plaintiff had sued. The Ninth Circuit held that theory wrong, joining four circuits against the First to hold that Bristol-Myers Squibb applies in FLSA collective actions: where jurisdiction is specific, each opt-in plaintiff's claim must bear its own connection to the forum. The panel simultaneously preserved the Campbell two-step and refused to require pre-notice rulings on absent employees' arbitration agreements — a split decision whose wins and losses both reshape forum strategy in hybrid wage cases.