Hernandez v. Chipotle Mexican Grill, Inc., 189 Cal.App.4th 751 (2010)

Rogelio Hernandez worked as a non-exempt employee at Chipotle Mexican Grill. In this putative class action, Hernandez alleged that Chipotle violated California wage and hour law by failing to ensure that its employees took their meal breaks. The trial court granted Chipotle’s motion to deny class certification and to strike the class allegations on…

Stiefel v. Bechtel Corp., 624 F.3d 1240 (2010)

James Richard Stiefel worked for Bechtel as an ironworker at a power plant. Five weeks before he was laid off, Stiefel injured his left hand while on the job. In his lawsuit, Stiefel alleged Bechtel laid him off as part of a “medical reduction in force,” which would result in cost savings to Bechtel under its…

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…

McCaskey v. California State Auto. Ass’n, 189 Cal.App.4th 947 (2010)

Charles Luke, Francis McCaskey and John Mellen filed this lawsuit against CSAA, alleging breach of contract and age discrimination. The contract claim was based on an alleged breach by CSAA of a promise to permit senior sales agents to continue in their employ under relaxed sales quotas (minimum production requirements or “MPR’s”). Plaintiffs also alleged…

On October 22, 2010, the California Court of Appeal in Villacres v. Abm Industries Inc., No. B219584, __ Cal. App. 4th __ (2010) rejected an attempt by a settling class member to use the California Private Attorney Generals Act (PAGA) to bring successive claims for civil penalties against his former employer, from whom he had previously accepted the proceeds from a class action settlement involving similar claims.  In so doing, the Court of Appeal affirmed the trial court’s granting of summary judgment for the employer on the ground that the plaintiff’s claims were barred under the doctrine of res judicata.  This outcome is a clear victory for employers who purchase costly peace through court-approved class action settlements, and a welcome clarification that PAGA cannot be used to peck an employer to death once such settlements are final.

California has enacted the "California Transparency in Supply Chains Act of 2010" (S.B. 657), which will require retail sellers and manufacturers that do business in California and that have over $100 million in annual worldwide gross receipts to publicly disclose their efforts to eradicate slavery and human trafficking from their direct supply chains for tangible goods offered for sale. The new law becomes effective on …

California has fallen to No. 39 in Forbes’ rankings of The Best States for Business in 2010, down one position from its ranking in 2009.

According to Forbes, the rankings are based on valuations of business costs, labor supply, the regulatory environment and other economic factors.  Among these specific measures, California ranked 44th in business costs, which includes the costs of labor, energy and…

EEOC v. Prospect Airport Servs., 2010 WL 3448119 (9th Cir. 2010)

Rudolpho Lamas and Sylvia Munoz were co-workers employed by Prospect Airport Services, Inc. at McCarran Airport in Las Vegas. Lamas, whose wife died in September 2001, began working at Prospect in the spring of 2002. During the fall of 2002, Munoz, who was married, began a series of rejected sexual overtures toward Lamas. Over the course of several months, Munoz handed Lamas three or four “flirtatious notes,” stating that she was “turned on” by Lamas and that she wanted to “go out” with him. When Lamas informed their boss, Patrick O’Neill, about Munoz’s overtures, O’Neill advised Lamas to tell Munoz the romantic interest was not mutual and to notify management if Munoz “kept it up” so they could “take care of it.” Lamas followed O’Neill’s advice and told Lamas he was not interested, but Munoz did not stop and in fact increased her romantic overtures toward him, handing him a revealing picture of herself while telling him about her “crazy dreams about us in the bathtub” and confirming to Lamas – lest there be any doubt – that “seriously, I do want you sexually and romantically!” Lamas complained to another manager who did nothing to stop Munoz’s unwelcome advances, while yet another told Lamas he did not want to get involved in “personal matters.” Lamas’ co-workers made remarks to him suggesting he was gay. After four or five months of harassment and no protection from management, Lamas’ performance began to deteriorate and eventually he was terminated for “complaints about [his] job performance and negative attitude.”

Reid v. Google, Inc., 50 Cal. 4th 512 (2010)

Brian Reid worked as Google’s director of operations and director of engineering for fewer than two years before he was terminated due to job elimination and poor performance. Reid, who was 52 years old at the time of his hire, reported to Wayne Rosing (age 55) and at times to Urs Hölzle (age 38), though he regularly interacted with other high-level employees of the company, including some who were in their late 20’s. Reid alleged that Hölzle and other employees made derogatory age-related remarks to him, saying that his ideas were “obsolete” and “too old to matter,” that he was “slow,” “fuzzy,” “sluggish,” and “lethargic” and that he did not “display a sense of urgency.” Other co-workers allegedly called Reid an “old man” and “old guy,” an “old fuddy-duddy,” told him his knowledge was “ancient” and joked that Reid’s CD jewel case office placard should be an “LP” instead of a “CD.” When Reid was informed no other positions were available for him at Google, he was told he was not a “cultural fit” at the company.