California employment case index

Cambodian villagers forced to work at Thai seafood factories sued a U.S. marketer under the trafficking civil-remedy statute; their case was dismissed because the statute then reached only those who succeeded in benefiting, not those who attempted to. After Congress amended the law, the en banc Ninth Circuit holds the clarifying amendment retroactive — and that Landgraf governs all such amendments, overruling the “clarifying amendment” exception — reviving the claims.

Fired the day she returned from pregnancy-related bed rest, a caregiver defeated summary judgment with declarations from four coworkers describing pregnancy-triggered firings by the same supervisors — evidence the court held admissible as a matter of law to prove motive, not propensity.

FEHA never names leave as a reasonable accommodation, yet leave is the most common accommodation dispute in practice. Two published decisions supply both halves of the rule: Hanson v. Lucky Stores holds that a finite leave can be a reasonable accommodation where the employee is likely to be able to work at the end of it, and that an employer need not wait indefinitely; Jensen v. Wells Fargo Bank fixes what an employer must establish to end such a case on summary judgment. This analysis states the rule, the proviso, the indefiniteness limit and the duty to reassign, and corrects the subdivision lettering that briefs still get wrong.

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.

When Lillian Garland returned from pregnancy disability leave to find her receptionist job filled, California’s guarantee of leave and reinstatement collided with her employer’s theory that Title VII forbade treating pregnancy “better” than other disabilities. The Supreme Court sided with California: the Pregnancy Discrimination Act is a floor beneath which pregnancy benefits may not drop, not a ceiling above which states may not rise — and employers can always comply with both laws by leveling benefits up. Guerra remains the constitutional foundation of the PDLL and of every California pregnancy protection built since.