Plaintiff former employee sued defendant former employer under the California Fair Employment and Housing Act (FEHA). The trial court granted defendant’s motion for summary judgment. The California Court of Appeal, Third Appellate District, affirmed, concluding that plaintiff’s action was barred by the doctrines of after-acquired evidence and unclean hands. Plaintiff’s petition for review was granted.
The Supreme Court concluded that Senate Bill No. 1818, which extends state law employee protections and remedies to all workers regardless of immigration status, is not preempted by federal immigration law except to the extent it authorizes an award of lost pay damages for any period after the employer’s discovery of an employee’s ineligibility to work in the United States. The doctrines of after-acquired evidence and unclean hands are not complete defenses to a worker’s claims under FEHA, ada violations & the california unruh civil rights act although they do affect the availability of remedies. Plaintiff’s evidence, if true, would support a finding that defendant employer deliberately chose to look the other way when put on notice of employees’ unauthorized status. Such a finding could affect application of the after-acquired evidence doctrine and thus the remedies available to plaintiff. The appellate court erred in treating the doctrine of unclean hands as a complete defense to plaintiff’s lawsuit.
The judgment of the appellate court was reversed, and the matter was remanded for further proceedings.
Plaintiff city resident appealed from a judgment of the Superior Court of San Diego County (California), which concluded that defendant, the board of directors of a nonprofit corporation created by the city, could meet in closed session with legal counsel for the city’s redevelopment agency under Gov. Code, § 54956.9, of the Brown Act, Gov. Code, § 54950 et seq.
In connection with its role in approving the settlement of eminent domain litigation, the board conferred with an outside law firm hired by the agency to litigate the eminent domain lawsuits. The publicly posted agendas announcing these meetings noted that they would take place in closed session pursuant to Gov. Code, § 54956.9, and indicated the specific eminent domain lawsuits that were to be discussed. After the meetings, the corporation published minutes, which typically indicated that the board received a report from special counsel for the agency in closed session regarding the litigation, and on occasion, that the board had given direction regarding a potential settlement. The court held that, according to the clear terms of § 54956.9, the general rules of attorney-client privilege did not apply to determine whether a meeting with legal counsel could be held in closed session. The court was required to narrowly interpret exceptions to the Brown Act’s open meeting requirements, and the Brown Act did not expressly authorize one local agency to delegate to a second local agency the authority to meet in closed session with legal counsel.
The court reversed the trial court’s judgment denying the relief sought by the resident and instructed the trial court to order declaratory and mandamus relief against the board’s practice of meeting in closed session with legal counsel for the agency regarding the agency’s eminent domain litigation.
