November 2024 Caselaw Review

We write to provide you with a summary of cases relevant to employers and healthcare providers from November 2024. These are from the 9th Circuit, the California Supreme Court, and Courts of Appeals. You can see our videos discussing these cases on our Carlson & Jayakumar YouTube channel.

Covid-19 and Employment

Bedard v. City of Los Angeles—An LAPD officer would not comply with a Covid-19 vaccination mandate and was fired. Because she didn’t base a claim on the LAPD violating a possible medical or religious exemption, the Court of Appeal affirmed the termination for non-compliance with the COVID-19 vaccination requirement.

PAGA and Wage and Hour

Rodriguez v. Lawrence Equipment, Inc.—The Plaintiff sued his employer for wage-and-hour violations and included a PAGA claim. It was ordered to arbitration, with the PAGA claim stayed. The arbitrator ruled for the employer, who then moved for judgment on the pleadings for the PAGA claim. That motion was granted with the court ruling, “This Court finds Plaintiff cannot state a cause of action under PAGA because Plaintiff does not have standing as an aggrieved employee following the arbitrator’s final ruling that Plaintiff failed to establish that he suffered any violations under the California Labor Code.”  The Court of Appeal affirmed the PAGA judgment because the Plaintiff lacked PAGA standing as the arbitration showed there were no Labor Code violations. 

Wrongful Termination and Social Media

Wawrzenski v. United Airlines—A female flight attendant sued United for firing her for having a social media account that showed her both in her United uniform and wearing a bikini while advertising a subscription account providing “exclusive private content,” purportedly in violation of United’s policies.  She countered that she’d suffered years of gender discrimination and harassment. The Court of Appeal overturned the trial court’s judgment and the order granting United’s MSJ. It found this based on three social media accounts of male employees in uniform and also partially undressed, who were not treated the same way. The trial court needed to examine if the alleged comparators were actually comparators.

Healthcare Retaliation and Negligence

Slone v. El Centro Regional Medical Center—A non-board certified surgeon with privileges at El Centro Regional Medical Center was suspended for not doing his medical records. He sued under Health & Safety Code section 1278.5 for retaliation for making a patient-safety complaint. The trial court ruled for the Center, finding neither retaliation nor damages. The doctor did not direct the appellate court to a specific error in the record made by the trial court, so the Court of Appeal affirmed the ruling. “In order to demonstrate error, an appellant must supply the reviewing court with some cogent argument supported by legal analysis and citation to the record.  Rather than scour the record unguided, we may decide that the appellant has waived a point urged on appeal when it is not supported by accurate citations to the record.”

Murphy v. City of Petaluma—A car accident victim repeatedly told the paramedics she was not injured and did not want medical assistance. They warned her she might be seriously injured and should go to a hospital and see a physician. She declined again and the paramedics left the scene. She later had a stroke and sued the paramedics for negligence—in not assessing her condition and not transporting her to the hospital. The paramedics won on summary judgment and the Court of Appeal affirmed the judgment—there is no assumed duty of care when the patient refuses care.

Minimum Wage Executive Order

Nebraska v. Su—This 9^th Circuit case ruled against a President Biden Executive Order requiring federal agencies to require contractors to pay their employees a minimum of $15/hour. The court ruled that the Order was beyond the President’s authority and violated the ‘major questions’ doctrine.

Arbitration Issues

Ortiz v. Elmcrest Care Center, LLC—A California Court of Appeal found an arbitrator’s Interim Award was not a Final Award. That was because the Interim Award explicitly reserved jurisdiction for further consideration. 

Trujillo v. J-M Manufacturing Co., Inc.—An unusual twist on the recent late-payment-of-arbitration-fees cases. Here, the parties stipulated to arbitration after beginning litigation. The Defendant employer, defending a sexual/gender discrimination and harassment case, was late on one of four arbitration fee payments over the course of a year. The trial court granted the Plaintiff’s motion to move the case back to state court.  But the appellate court reversed because CCP 1281.98 doesn’t apply to post-dispute stipulations, only pre-dispute agreements.

Gonzalez v. Nowhere Beverly Hills LLC—The Plaintiff signed an arbitration agreement to work at the Defendants’ markets. He sued for Labor Code violations and said the related markets were joinCt employers. Defendants moved to compel arbitration, and the Plaintiff sought to avoid this as to the markets he didn’t actually work at but still named. The Court of Appeal ruled he was estopped from avoiding arbitration with the other entities because the claims were intertwined. His joint-employment theory essentially required arbitration with all of them.

Abortion and Free Speech

Planned Parenthood v. Labrador—The 9^th Circuit affirmed the District Court’s enjoining of Idaho’s Attorney General from enforcing Idaho’s criminal abortion law. The Plaintiffs argued the law prevented free speech as, under the AG’s interpretation, doctors could not give patients information about abortion in other states.

Civil Procedure

California Capital Insurance Co. v. Hoehn—The California Supreme Court overturned precedent that a party had to move within 2 years to set aside a void judgment or order under CCP Section 473(d).  Courts of Appeals previously had set a 2-year requirement for such motions, but the new case found no basis for that in the law. It noted that if a case was based on lack of proper service, there was too much risk to the defendant and due process requires not imposing a judicially created deadline not supported by the statute’s language.

Shenefield v. Kovtun—An attorney waived a statute-of-limitations defense because of improper and untimely pleading in her case against a client’s ex-wife. There’s usually a 1-year statute for actions against attorneys, under CCP 340.6, and the attorney did not raise it in her responsive pleading but instead brought multiple unsuccessful Anti-SLAPP motions. Ultimately, it was 2 years later that she raised the SOL defense and the Court of Appeal found she’d waived it at that point.

Physician Distributing Narcotics

U.S. v. Pham—The 9^th Circuit decision wouldn’t allow a doctor to withdraw his guilty plea regarding the distribution of controlled substances. Regulations for distributing narcotics, related to the statute he violated, require a legitimate medical purpose. But the 9^th Circuit ruled the pills were distributed “outside the usual course of professional medical practice and without a legitimate medical purpose.”

Happy Holidays

As we conclude our last update of 2024 we want to wish you all Happy Holidays—Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, and Happy New Year. We look forward to providing more updates as to what 2025 holds in the coming weeks. Let us know if you have any questions about this newsletter or anything else we might be able to help you with. We wrap up 2024 with gratitude for our many clients and friends. Thank you!