Labor Employment Law Blog

A decade ago, in Reno v. Baird, the California Supreme Court held that individual employees could not be held personally liable for discrimination under the California Fair Employment and Housing Act.  Until this past week, however, the law regarding whether individual employees could be held liable for retaliation was unsettled.  In Jones v. The Lodge at Torrey Pines Partnership, the Supreme Court of California clarified that, as in discrimination cases, only employers and not individual employees can be held liable for retaliation.

The Courts Continue To Expand The Reach Of Retaliation Claims

We continue to see an expansion of retaliation claims filed by current and former employees and the courts are granting new rights to such complaining employees.

On June 22, 2006, the United States Supreme Court decided the case of Burlington Northern & Santa Fe Railway Co. v. White and addressed the split between the circuits as to what adverse actions are sufficient to fall within the scope of the federal law's anti-retaliation provision.

On August 11, 2005, the California Supreme Court, in Yanowitz v. L'Oreal USA, Inc., held that an employee's refusal to follow a supervisor's order that the employee reasonably believes to be discriminatory constitutes protected activity in a retaliation claim under the Fair Employment and Housing Act. In that case, Yanowitz alleged that she refused to carry out an order from a male supervisor to terminate the employment of a female associate who, in the male supervisor's opinion, was not sufficiently sexually attractive. After she refused to terminate the female sales associate, Yanowtiz claimed she was subjected to heightened scrutiny and hostile adverse treatment. Consequently, Yanowitz filed a lawsuit against the company asserting unlawful retaliation under the Fair Employment and Housing Act.