The Second District Court of Appeal (California) has held that a mistaken application of a legitimate company policy can support a claim for disability discrimination under the Fair Employment and Housing Act. A lack of animus does not preclude liability for a disability discrimination claim. (See, Glynn v. Superior Court (Allergan), 2019 S.O.S. 3554.) In Glynn, the court determined that even assuming the mistakes were reasonable and made in good faith, a lack of animus doe

The First District Court of Appeal has held that a trial court may, under inherent powers, permit live testimony via videoconferencing. However, in the medical malpractice case before it, it found no abuse of discretion in denying use of that technology because, among other circumstances, there had been adequate time to replace an expert medical witness who had become unable to appear in person, owing to health problems, with one who could have come to court to testify. Justi

The Court of Appeal, Second District, ruled that substantial evidence supported a finding that a county was a joint employer of the employees working for medical clinics owned by private corporations under contract with the county where the county exercised control over compensation and staffing decisions, the county was responsible for the financial aspects of the clinics’ operations, the clinic had control over the conditions of employment, and the clinic controlled the cli

A Sacramento County Superior Court judge has ruled that CalPERS does not have to disclose retirees’ disability status, siding with the pension fund and four unions that defended a Transparent California lawsuit seeking the information. CalPERS and the unions argued that disclosing disability status, which has its origins in medical records, would represent an unwarranted invasion of privacy. Their attorneys said disclosing the information could lead to harassment, bullying an

SB 1343 requires that all employers of 5 or more employees provide 1 hour of sexual harassment and abusive conduct prevention training to non-managerial employees and 2 hours of sexual harassment and abusive conduct prevention training to managerial employees once every two years. Existing law requires the training to include harassment based on gender identity, gender expression, and sexual orientation and to include practical examples of such harassment and to be provided b

The court of appeal in Carroll v. City and County of San Francisco, (Oct. 31, 2019) 2019 S.O.S. 3392, has held that an unlawful employment practice occurred each time a worker received an allegedly discriminatory disability retirement check, such that a new limitations period applies to each allegedly discriminatory check. A worker’s putative class claims are timely if she alleges unlawful acts occurring during the limitations period even if those acts arise from a systematic