Employment Law Case Notes
| Citation | Vol. 28 No. 2 |
| Publication year | 2014 |
| Author | By Anthony J. Oncidi |
By Anthony J. Oncidi
Anthony J. Oncidi is a partner in and the Chair of the Labor and Employment Department of Proskauer Rose LLP in Los Angeles, where he exclusively represents employers and management in all areas of employment and labor law. His telephone number is (310) 284-5690 and his email address is aoncidi@proskauer.com. (Tony has authored this column without interruption for every issue of this publication since 1990.)
Hunter v. CBS Broadcasting, Inc., 221 Cal. App. 4th 1510 (2013)
Kyle Hunter sued CBS Broadcasting for age and gender discrimination after it refused to hire him as a weather news anchor. Hunter alleged that CBS "repeatedly shunned him for numerous on-air broadcasting positions due to his gender and age," and that excluding him was "part of a plan to turn prime time weather broadcasting over to younger attractive females." In response to the complaint, CBS filed a special motion to strike pursuant to the California "anti-SLAPP" (Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation) statute, Cal. Civ. Proc. Code § 425.16, asserting that its selection of on-air weather reporters qualified as a protected exercise of its free speech rights. The trial court denied CBS's motion, but the court of appeal reversed, agreeing with the station that the selection of a news anchor is conduct in furtherance of the exercise of free speech rights. The court remanded the matter to the trial court to determine the second step of the anti-SLAPP analysis: whether Hunter had demonstrated a reasonable probability of prevailing on the merits—an issue the trial court had not reached. See also Kurz v. Syrus Sys., LLC, 221 Cal. App. 4th 748 (2013) (employer's cross-complaint against wrongful termination plaintiff for malicious prosecution of claim for unemployment benefits should have been stricken under anti-SLAPP statute).
Yanez v. Plummer, 221 Cal. App. 4th 180 (2013)
Michael Yanez sued his former employer, Union Pacific Railroad Company, for wrongful discharge, and also sued Union Pacific's in-house counsel, Brian Plummer, for legal malpractice, breach of fiduciary duty, and fraud. Union Pacific terminated Yanez's employment for dishonesty based on a discrepancy between a witness statement that Yanez wrote immediately after a co-employee's accident and a deposition answer that he gave during the course of that employee's lawsuit against the employer. At the deposition, Plummer represented both Union Pacific and Yanez (without first obtaining both clients' informed written consent as required by Rule 3-310(C) of the California Rules of Professional Conduct). Yanez claimed that the alleged dishonesty was a simple miswording in his witness statement that Plummer "manufactured [during the deposition] into something sinister for Union Pacific's benefit." The trial court granted summary judgment in favor of attorney Plummer on the ground that plaintiff Yanez could not meet the causation element of his claims. However, the court of appeal reversed, holding that it was Plummer's conduct during the deposition (in which Plummer questioned his own client) that drew attention to the discrepancy between Yanez's deposition testimony and a witness statement that Yanez had previously written about the accident, which ultimately resulted in the termination of Yanez's employment. See also Optimal Markets, Inc. v. Salant, 221 Cal. App. 4th 912 (2013) (Cal. Civ. Proc. Code § 128.7 sanctions motion against attorneys who prosecuted allegedly frivolous trade secrets claim in arbitration was properly denied).
To continue reading
Request your trial