September 2024 Caselaw Update

We have a new feature here at Carlson & Jayakumar for our clients or those with an interest in appellate decisions impacting employment or healthcare law. We’ve begun posting short videos on our Carlson & Jayakumar YouTube channel so you can catch up with all the new, relevant cases from California, the 9^th Circuit, and occasionally those of national importance. This is in addition to our legislative update and Supreme Court newsletter updates.

Here’s what we discussed for the September cases: 

Arbitration and Elon Musk Companies

Musk’s companies had a big month with the courts of appeals, as many cases discussed below show. 

Keeton v Tesla—A discrimination, harassment, and retaliation case where the parties agreed to arbitrate but Tesla didn’t timely pay the fees. This caused the plaintiff to try to move it to superior court. Tesla is now arguing CCP §1281.98 is preempted by the Federal Arbitration Act, which remains TBD for now.

Anoke v Twitter—Twitter also didn’t timely pay its arbitration fees, and the plaintiff, as above, moved under CCP §1281.98. This motion wasn’t granted as the plaintiff had mistakenly paid the fees previously, and Twitter ended up paying within 30 days, once the mistake was discovered. The trial and appellate courts ruled “no harm, no foul” as the arbitrator had the full fees within 30 days of invoicing.

Campbell v Sunshine Behavioral Health—More arbitration waiver issues. Here a plaintiff brought a class action on wage-and-hour issues. The parties agreed to mediate after beginning litigation. Then Sunshine apparently found Campbell’s arbitration agreement. The appellate court seemed skeptical on the timing and said arbitration was waived. Importantly, the court clarified the plaintiff did not need to show prejudice to allow for waiver. 

Maxwell v Atria Management—Is the decision to sign an arbitration agreement on behalf of a resident of a senior-living or skilled-nursing facility (or other healthcare facility) in the hands of the holder of the durable power of attorney or the holder of the healthcare power of attorney? We will (maybe) find out after the trial court takes this back up, but, apparently, Harrod v Country Oaks Partners didn’t clear this up.

PAGA and Anti-SLAPP

Taylor v Tesla—a California case against Tesla, who was trying to get a PAGA lawsuit—based on wage-and-hour and racial discrimination—thrown out using Anti-SLAPP. Wage-and-hour concerns were not part of “public debates” and the motion was denied.

Dignity Health v Mounts—Healthcare and employment issues here. Dignity Health sought recoupment of recruitment fees from Dr. Mounts, he counter-claimed for retaliation. Issues arose regarding 805 reports, competency, peer review, and so forth. Mounts’ claim was met by Dignity’s Anti-SLAPP motion. Its trial-court denial was overturned on appeal. And the CC §47 Litigation Privilege was successfully invoked.

Non-Compete Agreements, B&P §16600

Samuelian v Life Generations—A part-owner of a healthcare facility sold a portion of his shares, but because it wasn’t all the shares, the non-compete agreement isn’t necessarily voided.

Enjoining California’s New Laws, as Well as Arizona’s 

Wolford v Lopez—the 9^th Circuit, citing the Supreme Court’s 2022 New York Rifle & Pistol Assoc. v Bruen—enjoined a new California law that would ban firearms from “sensitive places” such as hospitals and other medical facilities.

X Corp v Banta—Musk’s company won this one. X argued First Amendment rights prevent the disclosure of information California recently mandated X and other social media companies turn over.

FEHA Claims

Simers v LA Times—The never-ending FEHA-based case from the late, former LA Times writer. This one’s been around over a decade, but his estate just won a large attorney’s fees award for (ultimately) prevailing on a FEHA claim.

Miller v CDCR—A corrections officer was hurt and couldn’t return to work, ending up on paid leave, and ultimately suing for disability discrimination. The officer couldn’t overcome summary judgement where the evidence might show a FEHA violation, but not the FEHA violation that was pled.

Title IX

Hunter v. US Dept. of Education—a 9^th Circuit case looking at a question under Title IX about religious exemptions. This one allowed religious exemptions for religious colleges.

Transgender Laws and Title IX

Doe v Horne—A 2022 Arizona law was put on hold by the 9^th Circuit. It essentially required students to play sports in accordance with their biological sex. The law was challenged under Equal Protection, 14^th Amendment, and Title IX theories.  The court found “before puberty, there are no significant differences in athletic performance between boys and girls.” 

Malpractice Claims

Blumberger v Tilley—The 9^th Circuit ruled that where a federally funded healthcare facility’s doctor is sued for malpractice, the doctor may be a federal employee. Thus, the United States is a defendant and the matter needs to be removed to federal court.

McCurry v Singh—A doctor won on summary judgment in a malpractice case. There was no negligence where the doctor refused to treat the patient as there was no physician-patient relationship.

FLSA

Silloway v City of San Francisco—Summary judgment against an employee nurse of SF was overturned in an overtime case. The 9^th Circuit found a question of material fact as to the professional exemption, wanting to know whether the city’s published salaries were actually used. 

Respondeat Superior

Kim v Uber Technologies—Gig employees aren’t working for the company once they switch the app off, even if an accident happens a few minutes later.

Medical Records

Civil Beat Law Center v Maile—The 9^th Circuit found a Hawaii law requiring—without further court review—all medical and health records filed in any court action to be filed under seal to be unconstitutionally overbroad.

Administrative Powers and Separation of Powers

As explained in our SCOTUS review newsletter, we believe cases in these areas are relevant to employers and any business or licensed professional given all the regulations they face.

D’Augusta v American Petroleum—An alleged oil-price conspiracy amongst Russia, Saudi Arabia, the United States, and Donald Trump against motorists was kicked out by the 9^th Circuit on “political issues” grounds, pointing to the separation of powers and the judiciary not overstepping the executive branch.

Clarke v Gordon—Administrative agencies’ processes can’t deprive people of licenses (in this case, driver’s licenses) without due process.

Let us know if you need more information on these or any other cases. And be sure to check out our video updates on our Carlson & Jayakumar YouTube channel.

Best,

Keith W. Carlson