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 California Supreme Court holds that CCP §1281.98's arbitration-fee-payment forfeiture rule is not preempted by the FAA — but, rejecting the rigid automatic-forfeiture reading, only where a late payment is willful, grossly negligent, or fraudulent rather than a good-faith mistake or excusable neglect.

California's fee-default statutes have become the most-used route out of employer-drafted arbitration, and in August 2025 the Supreme Court rewrote how they work. Code of Civil Procedure sections 1281.97 and 1281.98 still declare that a drafting party who pays the arbitrator more than 30 days late is in material breach, in default, and has waived its right to compel arbitration. But in Hohenshelt v. Superior Court the court held, 5-2, that this scheme survives FAA preemption only on a construction that leaves intact the background relief-from-forfeiture provisions — Code of Civil Procedure section 473, subdivision (b) and Civil Code sections 3275 and 1511 — so that the loss of the arbitral forum follows only from nonpayment that was willful, grossly negligent, or fraudulent. Mandatory monetary sanctions under section 1281.99, subdivision (a) still follow automatically. This synthesis sets out the operative statutory text and credit lines, traces the eleven Court of Appeal decisions the Supreme Court disapproved, states the post-Hohenshelt rule as a four-step sequence, shows how the first published application (Wilson v. Tap Worldwide) deployed it as an as-applied preemption argument, and identifies what remains open — including whether the same construction governs section 1281.97.

Analysis · Key Case Cvejic v. Skyview Capital, LLC (2023) 92 Cal.App.5th 1073 Court of Appeal, Second Appellate District, Division Eight · Docket No. B318880 · Decided June 28, 2023 Verify before relying. A summary and analysis as of its publication date — not legal advice, and not a representation that the decision remains good […]

Tilly’s required retail workers to phone the store exactly two hours before every on-call shift — under threat of written discipline — and paid nothing if the answer was ‘don’t come in.’ Division Three held, 2–1, that this triggers Wage Order 7 reporting-time pay: ‘reporting for work’ means presenting oneself as ordered, and the employer’s own directions define the manner, whether that is walking through the door, logging on remotely, or making a mandatory call. The holding is deliberately tied to the two-hour call-in regime, the retroactivity question was expressly left open, and Justice Egerton’s partial dissent — built on 18,000 pages of IWC history — supplies the employer playbook. Review was denied; Ward remains the leading California authority on call-in scheduling.

Stoneledge paid furniture sales associates on commission with a guaranteed $12.01 hourly draw that was deducted from later commissions. The Court of Appeal reversed summary judgment for the employer, holding that Wage Order No. 7 requires separate compensation for rest periods and applies equally to commissioned employees, piece-rate employees, or any other system that does not pay for rest breaks. The draws were not compensation at all – at best, interest-free loans.

Answering three questions certified by the Ninth Circuit, the California Supreme Court held that the “nature of the work” under the wage orders' seating provision refers to the tasks an employee performs at a given location – not to the whole job – and that whether the work reasonably permits sitting is an objective, totality-of-the-circumstances question in which employer business judgment and workplace layout are relevant but not dispositive. If the employer contends no suitable seat exists, it bears the burden of proving unavailability.

Fired the day she returned from pregnancy-related bed rest, a caregiver defeated summary judgment with declarations from four coworkers describing pregnancy-triggered firings by the same supervisors — evidence the court held admissible as a matter of law to prove motive, not propensity.

FEHA never names leave as a reasonable accommodation, yet leave is the most common accommodation dispute in practice. Two published decisions supply both halves of the rule: Hanson v. Lucky Stores holds that a finite leave can be a reasonable accommodation where the employee is likely to be able to work at the end of it, and that an employer need not wait indefinitely; Jensen v. Wells Fargo Bank fixes what an employer must establish to end such a case on summary judgment. This analysis states the rule, the proviso, the indefiniteness limit and the duty to reassign, and corrects the subdivision lettering that briefs still get wrong.

When Lillian Garland returned from pregnancy disability leave to find her receptionist job filled, California’s guarantee of leave and reinstatement collided with her employer’s theory that Title VII forbade treating pregnancy “better” than other disabilities. The Supreme Court sided with California: the Pregnancy Discrimination Act is a floor beneath which pregnancy benefits may not drop, not a ceiling above which states may not rise — and employers can always comply with both laws by leveling benefits up. Guerra remains the constitutional foundation of the PDLL and of every California pregnancy protection built since.