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 fire-department mechanic repeatedly confronted management and then alluded to an incident in which a firefighter fatally shot another firefighter. The Second District affirms a three-year workplace violence restraining order under section 527.8: the veiled reference was a credible, implied threat outside the First Amendment, and the order’s firearm restriction survives Second Amendment review under Rahimi.

In McDonald v. Santa Fe Trail Transportation Co. (1976) 427 U.S. 273, two white employees were discharged for participating in the theft of antifreeze from a shipment in their employer's care, while a Black employee charged with the same misconduct was retained. The Supreme Court held — unanimously as to Title VII, and seven-to-two as to 42 U.S.C. § 1981 — that both statutes protect against racial discrimination directed at any race, including white persons. An employer “may justifiably refuse to rehire one who was engaged in unlawful, disruptive acts against it, but only if this criterion is applied alike to members of all races.” The judgment dismissing the complaint was reversed and the case remanded.