144 | 2023 Cal-Peculiarities ©2023 Seyfarth Shaw LLP www.seyfarth.com 297 Toscano v. Greene Music, 124 Cal. App. 4th 685 (2004) (plaintiff, suing for promissory estoppel stemming from defendant’s unfulfilled alleged promise of employment, causing plaintiff to resign from at-will job at former employer, can recover what wages he would have earned from former employer through retirement, to extent damages not speculative). 298 Helmer v. Bingham Toyota Isuzu, 129 Cal. App. 4th 1121 (2005) (plaintiff can recover damages for lost income suffered from leaving secure job due to false promises about monthly compensation he would earn at defendant). See also § 5.6 (claims for breach of implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing). 299 Helmer v. Bingham Toyota Isuzu, 129 Cal. App. 4th 1121 (2005). 300 White v. Smule, Inc., 75 Cal. App. 5th 346, 357-59 (2022) (“[A]n ‘at-will’ employer does not have carte blanche to lie to an employee about any matter whatsoever to trick him or her into accepting employment” and at-will employment does not establish that an employee’s reliance on an employer’s promises regarding the kind, character, or existence of work the employee was hired to perform is unreasonable) (internal citations omitted). 301 Randi W. v. Muroc Joint Unified Sch. Dist., 14 Cal. 4th 1066, 1081-82 (1997) (“we view this case as a ‘misleading half-truths’ situation in which defendants, having undertaken to provide some information regarding Gadams’s teaching credentials and character, were obliged to disclose all other facts which ‘materially qualify’ the limited facts disclosed” and “having volunteered this information, defendants were obliged to complete the picture by disclosing material facts regarding charges and complaints of Gadams’s sexual improprieties.”) 302 Marshall v. Brown, 141 Cal. App. 3d 408, 418-19 (1983) (where plaintiff recovered both a treble damage award under Labor Code section 1054 and punitive damages, the plaintiff was required to elect between the two penalties, as the primary purpose behind both is to punish the defendant and “we do not sanction a double recovery for the plaintiff”). 303 Cf. Doe v. Capital Cities, 50 Cal. App. 4th 1038, 1046 (1996) (no liability for negligent retention of alleged sexual harasser where employer had no prior knowledge of relevant propensities). 304 Flores v. AutoZone West, 161 Cal. App. 4th 373, 380-81 (2008) (the question of “whether the employee’s physical eruption, stemming from his interaction with a customer, is a predictable risk of retail employment” presented a question of fact and precluded summary judgment). 305 See, e.g., Morales-Simental v. Genentech, Inc., 16 Cal. App. 5th 445, 456 (2017) (affirming summary judgment for company sued for death caused by employee while driving to work, because employee was simply going to work and was not performing “special errand” for his employer and an “employee’s decision to take work home or to drive to work at an unusual time does not bring the trip within the scope of employment”). 306 Moradi v. Marsh USA, Inc., 219 Cal. App. 4th 886, 890 (2013). See also Purton v. Marriott Int’l, Inc., 218 Cal. App. 4th 499, 509-10 (2013) (reversing summary judgment for Marriott on wrongful-death claim by estate of doctor who was killed by a Marriott bartender who had tended bar at a non-mandatory holiday party and was driving intoxicated; even though the accident occurred after the bartender had returned home, before returning to the road to give a lift to another intoxicated co-worker, Marriot could still be responsible: “a trier of fact could conclude that the party and the drinking of alcoholic beverages benefitted Marriott by improving employee morale and furthering employer-employee relations … and … that [the bartender] was acting within the scope of his employment while ingesting alcoholic beverages at the party”). 307 Moradi, 219 Cal. App. 4th at 891. Another 2013 appellate decision went the other way, affirming summary judgment for an employer whose employee, driving a company vehicle, hit another vehicle. In that case the Court of Appeal held that the employee’s trip was “entirely personal” in that it involved a 140-mile detour from his normal commute, and in that it was not taken for the benefit of the company. The risk of this accident was thus not even broadly incident to the company’s enterprise. Halliburton Energy Servs., Inc. v. Dep’t of Transp., 220 Cal. App. 4th 87 (2013); but see Moreno v. Visser Ranch, Inc., 30 Cal. App. 5th 568, 583-84 (2018) (distinguishing Halliburton because the driver was on personal business when the accident occurred, but noting that this did not establish as a matter of law that he was engaged in "purely” personal business). 308 Newland v. Cnty. of Los Angeles, 24 Cal. App. 5th 676, 689-91 (2018). 309 Id. at 692-93. 310 Talley v. County of Fresno, 51 Cal. App. 5th 1060 (2020).. 311 See Commodore Homes, Inc. v. Superior Court, 32 Cal. 3d 211, 220-21 (1982) (tort-like remedies are available under FEHA); Cal. Gov’t Code § 12965(b)(6) (attorney fees and expert witness costs awardable to prevailing party). 312 Stamps v. Superior Court, 136 Cal. App. 4th 1441 (2006) (Ralph Civil Rights Act of 1976 and Tom Bane Civil Rights Act, codified in Civil Code sections 51.7 and 52.1, provide separate claims for employee suffering employer’s discriminatory violence and intimidation; while the Unruh Act does not apply to employment discrimination, neither section here is part of the Unruh Act, and both statutes authorize a private right of action in employment cases—section 51.7 making wrongdoer liable for “actual damages suffered by any person denied that right” and section 52.1 providing that person whose rights have been interfered with “may institute and prosecute in his or her own name and on his or her own behalf a civil action for damages”). 313 Jimenez v. U.S. Cont’l Marketing, Inc., 41 Cal. App. 5th 189 (2019). 314 St. Myers v. Dignity Health, 44 Cal. App. 5th 301 (2019). 315 Medina v. Equilon Enterprises, LLC 68 Cal. App. 5th 868 (2021). 316 Lab. Code § 1194 (employee suing for statutory minimum wage entitled to attorney fees); Earley v. Superior Court (Washington Mut. Bank), 79 Cal. App. 4th 1420, 1429-30 (2000) (written notice to class members deciding whether to opt out is not to advise that they could be liable for defendant’s attorney fees if the defendant prevails; the policy stated in section 1194 overrides the general language of section 218.5; court harmonizes the two sections to hold that a prevailing defendant can obtain attorney fees in wage claims generally but not in claims for minimum wage or overtime premium pay). Section 218.5 does not apply “to any cause of action for which attorney fees are recoverable under Section 1194.” Lab. Code § 218.5(b).
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