California employment case index

Lauren Brown filed the fifth of five overlapping PAGA actions against the same restaurant operator. While her case sat stayed, the employer settled globally with an earlier plaintiff, and the trial court then granted judgment on the pleadings. Division Eight affirmed. The only contested question it reached was whether the settling plaintiff's failure to wait the full 65 days after her amended agency notice destroyed the settlement's preclusive effect – and the court held it did not, because nothing extends the waiting period to amended notices and the agency itself had accepted the settlement. Brown also lacked standing for violations postdating her 2018 separation.

A school district analyst who wanted to work entirely from home during and after the pandemic sued under FEHA and the Labor Code when her employer insisted on a phased return to the office. Division One affirmed summary judgment, holding that Government Code section 855.4 immunizes a public entity's discretionary decisions about controlling the spread of disease – including whether to permit remote work, when to require a return, and whether to mandate vaccination. But the court was explicit that it affirmed on immunity because the plaintiff's briefing 'contains no reasoned argument' explaining why her claims fell outside it, and it went on to affirm on three independent grounds: no qualifying disability, no admission of disability from holding interactive meetings, and no adverse employment action where a threatened leave was never imposed and the retirement was voluntary.

A solar-project electrician queued unpaid at a security gate while guards inspected vehicles, drove miles of access road under strict site rules, and ate lunch confined to a designated area under a CBA calling meal periods “unpaid.” Answering the Ninth Circuit, a unanimous Supreme Court held the exit procedure is compensable “hours worked”; the gate-to-lot drive is compensable only as “employer-mandated travel,” and only if the gate is the first location required for a reason beyond site access; and no collective bargaining agreement can waive the minimum wage for a meal period during which the employer’s confinement forecloses otherwise feasible personal activities.

A worker fired nine months into his vacation year was denied every day of accrued vacation pay because his employer's policy made eligibility turn on still being employed on his anniversary date – a rule it had applied to roughly 300 departing employees. A unanimous Supreme Court held the policy could not defeat the right. Vacation pay is not a gratuity but deferred wages earned by the year's labor, so a proportionate right to it vests as the work is performed, exactly as pension rights vest on acceptance of employment. An anniversary requirement is at most a condition subsequent, and Labor Code section 227.3 forbids an employer policy from turning that condition into a forfeiture of what has already been earned.