Recent California Employment Decisions
Plain-English reviews of recent California appellate decisions affecting employees — what was decided, what it changes, and what it means for California workers and the lawyers who represent them.
California employment law moves fast. New appellate decisions reshape how arbitration agreements get enforced, how class actions get tried, how disability accommodation duties are triggered, and how wage-and-hour rules are applied — sometimes in ways that change the answer to questions California workers and their lawyers have been answering the same way for years.
This page collects ShortLegal's reviews of recent California Court of Appeal and California Supreme Court decisions that matter for employees. Each entry includes a plain-English summary of what happened and what the case means. Decisions of particular significance receive a full review walking through what happened, what the court decided, what it does and does not change, and what it means for California workers facing similar issues — those entries link through to the full review. Other entries appear as summary-only.
A long-running wage-and-hour class action involving roughly 400 California escrow officers ended with a $43.5 million judgment for the class — only to have the Court of Appeal reverse it on two independent grounds. The trial plan violated California Supreme Court precedent on class-wide statistical proof, and the damages phase was improperly delegated to a private referee without the parties' consent. The class was decertified on remand. The named plaintiffs may pursue their individual claims; the trial court may entertain a new class certification motion if a properly structured class is proposed.
Read the full review⚠ Employee CautionA 20-month Target employee was terminated for workplace violence policy violations after two days of erratic behavior — which turned out to be caused by undisclosed bipolar disorder he had never told Target about. The Court of Appeal affirmed summary judgment for Target, applying two different FEHA knowledge standards and finding that neither was met. The decision underscores how high the constructive-knowledge bar is for undisclosed mental health conditions and why disclosure is often the most protective step an employee with an invisible disability can take.
Read the full review✓ Employee WinWhen a temp agency placed Robert Toothman at Redwood Toxicology and he later became a direct Redwood employee for nearly four years, Redwood tried to use the old staffing agency arbitration agreement to force his class action into individual arbitration. The Court of Appeal said no — the agreement covered employment with the staffing agency, not the separate direct employment that came afterward. The court rejected every theory Redwood put forward, and the class action survives.
Read the full review⚙ Arbitration UpdateA freight car repairman who worked on decommissioned cars in a rail yard argued he qualified for the Federal Arbitration Act's transportation worker exemption — which would have made his class action waiver unenforceable under California law. The Court of Appeal held he did not qualify. The cars he repaired were not actively carrying goods, and his class of workers was too far removed from the active flow of interstate commerce. The decision reinforces how narrowly California and federal courts are drawing the Saxon framework's transportation worker exemption.
Read the full reviewA union plasterer's California wage claims were held to be preempted by federal labor law and pushed to federal court because resolving them required interpreting the collective bargaining agreement. The decision is a reminder that when union workers attempt to vindicate California state wage rights, the structure of the CBA can sometimes determine which forum will hear the case — and federal-court adjudication under the Labor Management Relations Act applies different procedural rules than California's wage-and-hour regime.
An appellate court reversed the denial of class certification for approximately 135 EMS workers who argued their employer wrongly excluded an annual bonus from the "regular rate of pay" used to calculate overtime. The Court of Appeal held that whether the bonus was truly discretionary (and thus properly excluded) versus non-discretionary (and thus required to be folded into the regular rate) was a classwide question susceptible to common proof. The decision is a useful counterweight to recent class-action-skeptical rulings: when an employer's pay practice is uniform across the workforce, the question of whether that practice violates California wage law remains amenable to class treatment.
A bus driver's wage, overtime, meal and rest break, and retaliation claims were largely dismissed not on the merits but because she filed after the applicable statutes of limitations had expired. The case is a cautionary precedent on the importance of timely filing in California wage-and-hour and employment retaliation matters. California's statutes of limitations are not generous to claims that sit. Employees who suspect their rights have been violated should consult with counsel sooner rather than later — every month of delay can mean another month of recoverable damages falling off the back end of the limitations period, or, in some cases, the loss of the claim entirely.
An employer's motion to compel arbitration was denied because the onboarding packet's arbitration, class-action-waiver, and PAGA provisions were internally contradictory and ambiguous. The court held that no clear agreement to arbitrate existed under those circumstances. The decision is a useful reminder that arbitration agreements must satisfy ordinary California contract-formation requirements: when the paperwork an employee was handed contains conflicting terms about what is being waived and what is being preserved, the employer cannot rely on the ambiguity to push the claim out of court.
Looking for Plain-English Guides Instead?
The case reviews above focus on specific recent decisions. For broader plain-English guides to California employee rights — severance, wage and hour, arbitration, disability, class actions, and more — see our Know Your Rights section.
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