Grande v. Eisenhower Med. Ctr., 44 Cal. App. 5th 1147 (2020)

Lynn Grande was assigned through a temporary staffing agency (FlexCare) to work as a nurse at Eisenhower Medical Center. Grande was a named plaintiff in a class action prosecuted against FlexCare in which she alleged she had not received her required meal and rest breaks, wages for certain periods she had worked and overtime wages. A year after FlexCare settled with the class (including Grande), Grande brought a second class action alleging the same violations against Eisenhower, which was not a party to the original class action. The trial court held a trial limited to the questions of whether Eisenhower was a released party as a result of the settlement agreement and/or whether Eisenhower and FlexCare were in privity such that Grande’s claims against Eisenhower were barred by the prior action against FlexCare. The trial court ruled in Grande’s favor, and the Court of Appeal affirmed, holding that because the release did not include words such as “clients, joint employers, joint obligors” of FlexCare or reference to “any client of FlexCare as to whom any class member may have provided services through FlexCare,” Eisenhower was not among the “Released Parties.” The Court further held that FlexCare and Eisenhower were not in privity with one another because joint employers are generally not liable for each other’s Labor Code violations (following Serrano v. Aerotek, Inc., 21 Cal. App. 5th 773 (2018) from the Fourth Appellate District and refusing to follow Castillo v. Glenair, Inc., 23 Cal. App. 5th 262 (2018) from the Second Appellate District). (Note that the second holding drew a dissent from Presiding Justice Ramirez.)

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Photo of Tony Oncidi Tony Oncidi

Anthony J. Oncidi is the Co-Chair Emeritus 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…

Anthony J. Oncidi is the Co-Chair Emeritus 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.