Employment Law Blog

California Labor Code section 510 requires employers to pay overtime compensation for hours worked over 8 per day and 40 per week. An employer may avoid paying overtime for hours worked over 8 per day by adopting a valid Alternative Workweek Schedule. The procedures for adopting a valid AWS are set forth in Labor Code § 511 and the relevant Industrial Welfare Commission (“IWC”) Wage Order No. 4 at California Code of Regulations, title 8, § 11040, subd. 3(B). Among other things, the law requires an employer to hold a secret ballot election regarding the AWS amongst its employees and to file the results of the election with the State.

The California Fair Employment and Housing Act (“FEHA”) requires employers to reasonably accommodate their employees’ known disabilities and to engage in a “timely, good faith, interactive process” in order to determine effective reasonable accommodations. Government Code section 12940, subd. (m), (n).

Wrongful termination from employment is tortious when the termination occurs in violation of a fundamental public policy. Gantt v. Sentry Insurance (1992) 1 Cal.4th 1083, 1090. A policy is “fundamental” when it is “carefully tethered” to a policy “delineated in constitutional or statutory provisions” (id. at p. 1095), involves a duty affecting the public at large, rather than one owed to or imposed solely upon the parties to a dispute (id. at 1090), and is “well established” and “sufficiently clear” to the employer at the time of the discharge. Id. Wrongful termination cases typically arise when an employer retaliates against an employee for refusing to violate a statute, performing a statutory obligation, exercising a statutory right, or reporting an alleged violation of a statute of public importance. Turner v. Anheuser-Busch, Inc. 7 Cal.4th 1238, 1256 (1994). However, as noted in Soules v. Cadam, Inc. 2 Cal.App.4th 390, 401 (1991), an action for tortious discharge is not strictly limited to these situations but will lie “wherever the basis of the discharge contravenes a fundamental public policy.”

Wrongful termination from employment is tortious when the termination occurs in violation of a fundamental public policy. Gantt v. Sentry Insurance (1992) 1 Cal.4th 1083, 1090. A policy is “fundamental” when it is “carefully tethered” to a policy “delineated in constitutional or statutory provisions” (id. at p. 1095), involves a duty affecting the public at large, rather than one owed to or imposed solely upon the parties to a dispute (id. at 1090), and is “well established” and “sufficiently clear” to the employer at the time of the discharge. Id. Wrongful termination cases typically arise when an employer retaliates against an employee for refusing to violate a statute, performing a statutory obligation, exercising a statutory right, or reporting an alleged violation of a statute of public importance. Turner v. Anheuser-Busch, Inc. 7 Cal.4th 1238, 1256 (1994). However, as noted in Soules v. Cadam, Inc. 2 Cal.App.4th 390, 401 (1991), an action for tortious discharge is not strictly limited to these situations but will lie “wherever the basis of the discharge contravenes a fundamental public policy.”

Wrongful termination from employment is tortious when the termination occurs in violation of a fundamental public policy. Gantt v. Sentry Insurance (1992) 1 Cal.4th 1082, 1090. A policy is “fundamental” when it is “carefully tethered” to a policy “delineated in constitutional or statutory provisions” (id. at p. 1095), involves a duty affecting the public at large, rather than one owed to or imposed solely upon the parties to a dispute (id. at 1090), and is “well established” and “sufficiently clear” to the employer at the time of the discharge. Id. Wrongful termination cases typically arise when an employer retaliates against an employee for refusing to violate a statute, performing a statutory obligation, exercising a statutory right, or reporting an alleged violation of a statute of public importance. Turner v. Anheuser-Busch, Inc. 7 Cal.4th 1238, 1256 (1994). However, as noted in Soules v. Cadam, Inc. 2 Cal.App.4th 360, 201 (1991), an action for tortious discharge is not strictly limited to these situations but will lie “wherever the basis of the discharge contravenes a fundamental public policy.”