California employment case index

The California Supreme Court granted review on March 25, 2026 in Barbosa v. Sierra Pacific Orthopaedic Center Medical Group to decide whether an arbitration agreement that designates the Federal Arbitration Act thereby imports the FAA's substantive provisions and their preemptive force, even where no interstate commerce is shown. The underlying Court of Appeal opinion is nonpublished, and the Court denied the requests to publish it on granting review. The paired grant-and-hold, Tuufuli v. West Coast Dental Administrative Services, is published but itself under review, and answered the question yes. This pending-review analysis sets out the Court's own issue statement, the competing answers below with their correct citability under rule 8.1115(e)(1), and what the answer decides for Armendariz, Labor Code section 432.6, the arbitration-fee statutes and the EFAA.

The Ninth Circuit held the Federal Arbitration Act preempts AB 51 (Labor Code § 432.6), California's attempt to ban mandatory employment arbitration, because a state rule that burdens the formation of arbitration agreements stands as an obstacle to the FAA.

Reversing summary judgment for the UC Regents, the Second District mapped the post-Lawson landscape — Labor Code § 1102.6 governs § 1102.5 claims, Government Code § 8547.10(e) supplies the same framework for University of California whistleblowers, and McDonnell Douglas still governs Health and Safety Code § 1278.5 claims, under which Scheer's clause-by-clause dismantling of his termination letter raised a triable issue of pretext.

The after-acquired-evidence defence is raised in a large share of wrongful-termination cases and its effect is routinely mis-stated. It does not defeat liability. Under McKennon it limits the remedy — no reinstatement and no front pay as a general rule, with backpay running from the unlawful discharge to the date the employer actually discovered the wrongdoing — and under Salas v. Sierra Chemical Co. the same is true in California of both after-acquired evidence and unclean hands, neither of which is a complete defence to a FEHA claim. This analysis fixes the cut-off date, sets out what the employer must prove to earn it, keeps Salas's immigration-status holding in its proper place as a separate federal overlay, and explains why Camp v. Jeffer, Mangels, Butler & Marmaro — the one California decision to produce a complete bar — now sits uneasily with Salas.