Sandell v. Taylor-Listug, Inc., 188 Cal. App. 4th 297 (2010)

Robert Sandell began his employment as vice president of sales with Taylor-Listug in February 2004. Six months later, while on a six-month sabbatical from work, Sandell suffered a stroke (following a chiropractic adjustment). When Sandell returned to work in October, he was using a cane and had noticeably slower speech. Taylor-Listug terminated Sandell’s employment three years later (when he was 60 years old) because of his “lack of leadership in providing direction to the sales team and in producing satisfactory sales results.” Sandell sued for age and disability discrimination. The trial court granted summary judgment to Taylor-Listug, but the Court of Appeal reversed, finding evidence of pretext for the termination given Sandell’s relatively favorable performance evaluations. The Court also discounted declarations from employees who criticized Sandell’s management because none of these employees had ever brought those complaints to the attention of management while Sandell was still working for the company. Relying upon Reid v. Google, Inc., 50 Cal. 4th 512 (2010), the Court of Appeal refused to label as “stray remarks” certain comments management personnel made directly to Sandell about his disability. As for the age claim, the Court determined the delay in replacing Sandell with a significantly younger employee (18 months after Sandell’s termination) and the fact that Sandell was hired and fired by the same person within a short period of time did not entitle the employer to summary adjudication of this claim. See also Steller v. Sears, Roebuck & Co., 2010 WL 4010602 (Cal. Ct. App. 2010) (parties’ settlement of disability discrimination claim impliedly included settlement of outstanding workers’ compensation claims but also was impliedly conditioned upon the WCAB’s approval of the settlement of the workers’ compensation claim).

 

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Photo of Tony Oncidi Tony Oncidi

Anthony J. Oncidi is the co-chair of the Labor & Employment Law Department and heads the West Coast Labor & Employment group in the firm’s Los Angeles office.

Tony represents employers and management in all aspects of labor relations and employment law, including…

Anthony J. Oncidi is the co-chair of the Labor & Employment Law Department and heads the West Coast Labor & Employment group in the firm’s Los Angeles office.

Tony represents employers and management in all aspects of labor relations and employment law, including litigation and preventive counseling, wage and hour matters, including class actions, wrongful termination, employee discipline, Title VII and the California Fair Employment and Housing Act, executive employment contract disputes, sexual harassment training and investigations, workplace violence, drug testing and privacy issues, Sarbanes-Oxley claims and employee raiding and trade secret protection. A substantial portion of Tony’s practice involves the defense of employers in large class actions, employment discrimination, harassment and wrongful termination litigation in state and federal court as well as arbitration proceedings, including FINRA matters.

Tony is recognized as a leading lawyer by such highly respected publications and organizations as the Los Angeles Daily JournalThe Hollywood Reporter, and Chambers USA, which gives him the highest possible rating (“Band 1”) for Labor & Employment.  According to Chambers USA, clients say Tony is “brilliant at what he does… He is even keeled, has a high emotional IQ, is a great legal writer and orator, and never gives up.” Other clients report:  “Tony has an outstanding reputation” and he is “smart, cost effective and appropriately aggressive.” Tony is hailed as “outstanding,” particularly for his “ability to merge top-shelf lawyerly advice with pragmatic business acumen.” He is highly respected in the industry, with other commentators lauding him as a “phenomenal strategist” and “one of the top employment litigators in the country.”

“Tony is the author of the treatise titled Employment Discrimination Depositions (Juris Pub’g 2020; www.jurispub.com), co-author of Proskauer on Privacy (PLI 2020), and, since 1990, has been a regular columnist for the official publication of the Labor and Employment Law Section of the State Bar of California and the Los Angeles Daily Journal.

Tony has been a featured guest on Fox 11 News and CBS News in Los Angeles. He has been interviewed and quoted by leading national media outlets such as The National Law JournalBloomberg News, The New York Times, and Newsweek and Time magazines. Tony is a frequent speaker on employment law topics for large and small groups of employers and their counsel, including the Society for Human Resource Management (“SHRM”), PIHRA, the National CLE Conference, National Business Institute, the Employment Round Table of Southern California (Board Member), the Council on Education in Management, the Institute for Corporate Counsel, the State Bar of California, the California Continuing Education of the Bar Program and the Los Angeles and Beverly Hills Bar Associations. He has testified as an expert witness regarding wage and hour issues as well as the California Fair Employment and Housing Act and has served as a faculty member of the National Employment Law Institute. He has served as an arbitrator in an employment discrimination matter.

Tony is an appointed Hearing Examiner for the Los Angeles Police Commission Board of Rights and has served as an Adjunct Professor of Law and a guest lecturer at USC Law School and a guest lecturer at UCLA Law School.