California Employment Law Notes

• Citation: Vol. 38 No. 2
• Publication year: 2024
• Author: Anthony J. Oncidi

CALIFORNIA EMPLOYMENT LAW NOTES

AUTHOR^*

Anthony J. Oncidi

NEW TRIAL ORDERED FOLLOWING IMPROPER EVIDENCE ADMISSION

Argueta v. Worldwide Flight Servs., Inc., 97 Cal. App. 5th 822 (2023)

Eunices Argueta worked as an agent in the import department of the employer, a freight operations company, reporting to Dzung Nguyen, whom she claimed had sexually harassed her. A jury returned a defense verdict, and Argueta filed a motion for new trial and for judgment notwithstanding the verdict—both of which the trial court denied.

Over the spirited dissent of Justice Elizabeth A. Grimes, the court of appeal reversed, holding that Argueta was entitled to a new trial based on the lower court's admitting evidence of multiple complaints that other employees had made against Argueta. The complaints accused Argueta of "bullying, harassment, retaliation, yelling, making threats and other bad behavior, including discriminating against a pregnant subordinate employee." The trial court denied Argueta's motion in limine regarding the employees' complaints against her on the ground that they were relevant to "the plaintiff's motive for making the complaints of sexual harassment." Argueta contended and the court of appeal agreed that the evidence in question was improper and irrelevant character evidence and that, in any event, motive is not an element of a sexual harassment claim and that the employer would be strictly liable for the harassment regardless of what motive Argueta may have had to file the complaint.

ERRONEOUS JURY INSTRUCTIONS GIVEN IN WHISTLEBLOWER CASE

Garrabrants v. Erhart, 2023 WL 9016436 (Cal. Ct. App. 2023)

Charles Matthew Erhart was an internal auditor for a financial institution who "blew the whistle" on the employer concerning the actions of the bank's CEO, Gregory Garrabrants. While Erhart's whistleblower case was pending in federal court, Garrabrants sued Erhart in state court for copying, retaining, and transmitting documents to multiple regulatory authorities Erhart believed evidenced possible wrongdoing; those documents included personal and confidential information that belonged to Garrabrants.

At trial, a jury awarded Garrabrants $1,502 on his claims against Erhart for invasion of privacy, receiving stolen property, and unauthorized access to computer data in violation of California Penal Code section 502. The trial court awarded Garrabrants $65,887 in costs and more than $1.3 million in attorney's fees as the prevailing party.

The court of appeal reversed, holding that the trial court erroneously instructed the jury that bank customers have an unqualified reasonable expectation of privacy in financial documents disclosed to banks; that Erhart needed to believe the documents may have been lost or destroyed had he not removed them; and other instructional errors regarding the statutory claims.¹

SINGLE HARASSING INCIDENT MAY CREATE HOSTILE WORK ENVIRONMENT

Beltran v. Hard Rock Hotel Licensing, Inc., 97 Cal. App. 5th 865 (2023)

Stephanie Beltran, a server at the Hard Rock Hotel in Palm Springs, alleged she had been sexually harassed by Juan Rivera, the former general manager of the...