California employment case index

A former Academy Mortgage employee won a False Claims Act qui tam case after the government declined to intervene, and her counsel obtained a fee award enhanced by a 1.75 lodestar multiplier. The Ninth Circuit reverses the enhancement: above-lodestar multipliers are reserved for the “rare and exceptional” case, cannot rest on factors already in the lodestar, and require a reviewable methodology.

A former Work Practice Apprentice at the San Francisco Zen Center won a wage award, but the trial court held the First Amendment’s ministerial exception barred his claims. The First District reverses, adopting its companion case Lorenzo: the exception bars only claims that require resolving ecclesiastical questions, and the Center showed none. NOTE: the controlling ministerial-exception issue is now before the California Supreme Court in Lorenzo (S294565), so this opinion is citable for persuasive value only.

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.