Justia California Court of Appeals Opinion Summaries

The Court of Appeal affirmed the trial court's denial of a petition to compel arbitration of plaintiff's action for wage and hour violations. In this case, plaintiff was an hourly employee at Wash Depot. Wash Depot adopted a policy set forth in its employee handbook, written in both English and Spanish, requiring arbitration of legal claims arising from the employment relationship. The English version stated that the denial of the right to bring a Private Attorneys General Act (PAGA) action was severable if such denial was found by a court to be unenforceable, but the Spanish version provided that the PAGA denial was not severable. The court held that the arbitration agreement was unenforceable and the PAGA waiver set forth in the handbook was unenforceable as against public policy; the trial court did not abuse its discretion by declining to sever the PAGA waiver and enforce the remaining arbitration agreement; and the court construed the ambiguous language against the interest of the party that drafted it. View "Juarez v. Wash Depot Holdings, Inc." on Justia Law

Employees brought a class action for failure to pay wages, failure to provide meal and rest periods, failure to furnish timely and accurate wage statements, failure to pay wages to discharged employees, and unfair business practices. They were employed in hourly positions, requiring them to swipe their ID badges at the beginning and end of their shifts. They claimed their employers’ method of calculating hours violated the Labor Code because the system rounded employees’ hours up or down to the nearest quarter hour before calculating wages and issuing paychecks, rather than using the employees’ exact check-in and checkout times. An expert examined data for a four-year period. One employer’s rounding procedure added time (9,476 hours) to the pay of 49.3% of the workforce (709 employees) and left 1.2 percent of the workforce (17) unaffected; 49.5 percent of the workforce (713) lost time (8,097 hours)-- an average net reduction of 2.04 minutes per employee shift. For the other employer, the rounding procedure added time (17,464 hours) to the pay of 47.1 percent of the workforce (861 employees), and had no effect on 0.8 percent of the workforce (14); 52.1 percent of the workforce (953) lost time (13,588 hours). The court of appeal found the system neutral on its face and as applied, in compliance with California law. View "AHMC Healthcare, Inc. v. Superior Court" on Justia Law

The South Orange County Community College District (the District) dismissed Carol Wassmann from employment as a tenured librarian at Irvine Valley College (IVC) in April 2011. Several years later, Wassmann obtained a right to sue notice from the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing (DFEH) and brought this lawsuit against the District, Karima Feldhus, Robert Brumucci, Glenn Roquemore, Lewis Long, and Katherine Schmeidler. Wassmann, who is African-American, alleged causes of action for racial discrimination, age discrimination, and harassment in violation of the California Fair Employment and Housing Act (FEHA), intentional infliction of emotional distress, and two other causes of action (not relevant here). The trial court granted two motions for summary judgment: one brought by the District Defendants and the other brought by Long and Schmeidler, on the ground the FEHA claims were barred by res judicata, collateral estoppel, or failure to exhaust administrative remedies, and the intentional infliction of emotional distress cause of action was barred by res judicata, collateral estoppel, or the statute of limitations. Wassmann appealed, but finding no reversible error in the grant of summary judgment, the Court of Appeal affirmed. View "Wassmann v. South Orange County Community College Dist." on Justia Law

Plaintiff-appellant Natasha Meeks contended that she suffered sexual harassment on the job. She brought suit against her employer, defendant-appellant AutoZone, Inc. (AutoZone), and the alleged harasser, defendant-appellant Juan Fajardo, raising claims of sexual harassment, failure to prevent sexual harassment, and retaliation in violation of the Fair Employment and Housing Act (FEHA). The trial court granted summary adjudication in favor of AutoZone on Meeks’s retaliation claim. A jury returned defense verdicts on her remaining claims. On appeal, Meeks argued that certain evidentiary rulings at trial were prejudicial errors, requiring reversal. She also claimed the trial court’s grant of summary judgment to AutoZone on her retaliation claim was erroneous. After review, the Court of Appeal affirmed the trial court’s grant of summary adjudication on the retaliation claim. However, the Court found several erroneous evidentiary rulings required reversal of the judgment and remand for new trial on the remaining claims. View "Meeks v. AutoZone, Inc." on Justia Law

The Metropolitan Water District challenged the decision of a hearing officer on a union grievance concerning the District’s use of a “comparative analysis” procedure in job postings. The trial court set aside the hearing officer’s decision on the grounds that it granted relief on an issue that was not ripe and exceeded the scope of the issue before him. The court of appeal affirmed. The issue before the hearing officer was framed as a question of whether the District violated the agreement in a particular job posting but the only union applicant for that posting did not meet the minimum requirements, so there was no actual controversy. Instead, the hearing officer was asked to speculate on the resolution of the hypothetical situation where a union applicant, meeting minimum requirements for the position, is subject to the comparative analysis procedure. In ordering the District to “cease and desist from the use of posting language or a recruitment procedure that provides ... for a comparative analysis” went beyond the hearing officer’s role, which is “limited” to hearing “the written grievance as originally filed.” The issue before the hearing officer was limited to the District’s use of language in job posting 3533719. View "Metropolitan Water District of Southern California. v. Winograd" on Justia Law

Plaintiff challenged LACERA's forfeiture of his vested retirement benefits based on the determination by the County that plaintiff's gambling conduct was committed in the scope of his official duties pursuant to the Public Employees' Pension Reform Act of 2013, Government Code 7522 et seq. The Court of Appeal held that section 7522.72 is constitutionally sound, but that LACERA, not the County, bears the burden to afford plaintiff the requisite due process protections in determining whether his conviction fell within the scope of the statute. Therefore, the court modified the judgment to require the County to provide the requisite due process. View "Hipsher v. Los Angeles County Employees Retirement Ass'n" on Justia Law

An employee must be driving a personal vehicle in the course and scope of his employment at the time of the accident to extend vicarious liability to an employer. Liability may be imposed on an employer for an employee's tortious conduct while driving to or from work, if at the time of the accident, the employee's use of a personal vehicle was required by the employer or otherwise provided a benefit to the employer. The Court of Appeal reversed the trial court's judgment imposing liability on the employer in an action where an employee driving home from work on a day that he did not have any job duties outside of the office injured a third party. The court held that the evidence showed that the employee in this case was driving a routine commute to and from work on the day of the accident, and he was not required to use his personal vehicle for work purposes that day. Furthermore, the employer did not otherwise benefit from his use of a personal vehicle that day. Therefore, the employer was entitled to judgment as a matter of law. View "Newland v. County of Los Angeles" on Justia Law

The IHSS program (Welf. & Inst. Code 12300) provides in-home services to elderly or disabled persons so that they may avoid institutionalization. For purposes of the state unemployment insurance system, IHSS service recipients are considered employers of their service providers if the providers are directly paid by the program or the recipient receives IHSS funds to pay their providers (Unemp. Ins. Code 683.) Generally, an employee of a close family member (child, parent or spouse) is excluded from unemployment insurance coverage. The California Unemployment Insurance Appeals Board ruled that, because a close-family-member IHSS service provider under the Direct Payment Mode is employed by the recipient, the provider is subject to the exclusion of Unemployment Insurance Code 631 (Caldera). Skidgel, an IHSS provider for her daughter, challenged the validity of Caldera, arguing government entities were joint employers with the recipient, thereby qualifying providers for unemployment insurance coverage despite the close-family-member exclusion. The court of appeal rejected the challenge, concluding that the Legislature, in enacting Unemployment Insurance Code section 683, intended to designate the recipient as the IHSS provider’s sole employer for purposes of unemployment insurance coverage. View "Skidgel v. California Unemployment Insurance Appeals Board" on Justia Law

Appellants Vincent Krolikowski and Connie Van Putten were former employees of the City of San Diego (the City) and members of the San Diego City Employees' Retirement System (SDCERS) who received monthly pension payments from SDCERS, the administrator of the City's pension plan. Krolikowski and Van Putten separately filed lawsuits against SDCERS after SDCERS discovered an error in calculating their monthly pension benefits and took action to recoup the past overpayments. In their consolidated lawsuits, Krolikowski and Van Putten claimed conversion, breach of fiduciary duty, writ of mandate and declaratory relief, all of which challenged SDCERS's ability to implement a recoupment procedure to collect the overpayments from Krolikowski and Van Putten. After a bench trial, the trial court entered judgment in favor of SDCERS. Krolikowski and Van Putten argued on appeal the trial court erred in: (1) sustaining SDCERS's demurrer to the conversion and breach of fiduciary duty causes of action; and (2) finding in favor of SDCERS after conducting a bench trial on the remaining causes of action for writ of mandate and declaratory relief. The Court of Appeal found no merit to these arguments and affirmed the trial court's judgment. View "Krolikowski v. San Diego City Employees' Retirement System" on Justia Law

Smythe, a driver for both Uber and Lyft, claimed that Uber directed its drivers and others to use fake Lyft accounts to request rides, sending Lyft drivers on “wild goose chases.” He asserted claims for unfair business practices and intentional interference with prospective economic damage on behalf of a putative class of Lyft drivers. Uber moved to compel arbitration. Smythe signed agreements containing an arbitration provision that “applies to any dispute arising out of or related to this Agreement or termination of the Agreement … without limitation, to disputes arising out of or related to this Agreement and disputes arising out of or related to your relationship with the Company …. to disputes regarding any city, county, state or federal wage-hour law, trade secrets, unfair competition, compensation, breaks and rest periods, expense reimbursement, termination, harassment and claims arising under [several specific laws] and all other similar ... claims. This Agreement is intended to require arbitration of every claim or dispute that lawfully can be arbitrated.” The agreement's delegation clause states that the disputes subject to arbitration include "disputes arising out of or relating to interpretation or application of this Arbitration Provision, including the enforceability, revocability or validity .... All such matters shall be decided by an arbitrator and not by a court.” The court of appeal affirmed that Smythe’s allegations were beyond the scope of the arbitration agreement and that the delegation provision was unenforceable in this context. View "Smythe v. Uber Technologies, Inc." on Justia Law