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 work practice apprentice at one of North America’s largest Soto Zen Buddhist temples conceded she was a minister, sued only for the minimum and overtime wages she had already earned, and lost on summary judgment to the First Amendment ministerial exception. Division Five of the First District reversed on two independent grounds. The exception, it held, bars only those employment claims that necessarily require an inquiry into matters of a religious entity’s internal government closely linked to its faith and doctrine — and the Center never explained how a minimum-wage claim required one, conceding in its brief that adjudicating the case raised no ecclesiastical question. Separately, because the Labor Commissioner had found two individuals liable as the employer under Labor Code section 558.1, each of them had to post an undertaking under section 98.2 to perfect a de novo appeal; neither did, so the trial court had no jurisdiction over their appeals. The California Supreme Court granted review on February 11, 2026, limited to the ministerial-exception question, but denied depublication and directed that the opinion may still be cited both for its persuasive value and to establish a conflict in authority. This analysis sets out the Court’s own issue statement, what the Court of Appeal actually held and on what evidence, and exactly how much weight the opinion carries while review is pending.

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.