Orange County Employment Lawyer Blog

In the recent California Court of Appeals decision Jeewarat v. Warner Brothers Entertainment, the Court relied on what is known as the "special errand doctrine". This doctrine provides an exception to the "going and coming rule" which means that an employee who has an accident during travel time to and from home to work is solely responsible for the accident, not the employer.

My Orange County Employment Law Firm has handled many cases regarding travel time. However, those cases usually center on whether or not an employee is entitled to wages while traveling for his or her employer. In the Jeewarat case, the employee was driving home from the airport after a three day business trip when he struck three pedestrians, killing one of them and injuring the others. Those pedestrians then sued the employee and his employer, Warner Brothers.

The Court held that the "special errand doctrine" provided an exception to the going and coming rule. Because Warner Brothers paid for its employee's airfare, hotel, and other travel expenses, the entire trip was not concluded until the employee reached his home. Consequently, the Court found Warner Brothers to be vicariously liable (responsible) for its employee's actions, and thus liable for damages to the pedestrians.

Almost all California employees are "at will" employees, meaning they can be terminated for any reason, so long as it is not an unlawful reason. So, if most employees are at will employees, what separates a termination from a wrongful termination?

California employees can essentially be terminated for any reason, so long as the reason is not an unlawful reason. Here are some of the more common unlawful reasons that would make a termination a wrongful termination:

1. An employee may not be terminated for lawfully reporting sexual harassment to a supervisor or to Human Resources;
2. Similar to above, an employee cannot be terminated for participating in an investigation of someone else's claims of sexual harassment or unlawful discrimination;
3. For exposing certain unlawful wrongdoings by the company or by a higher ranking employee of the company, commonly known as whistle-blowing;
4. For submitting a worker's compensation claim from injuries suffered at work;
5. For complaining to management or Human Resources about not receiving proper wages, overtime compensation, lunch breaks or rest breaks;
6. For filing a complaint with a governmental or administrative agency such as the DFEH or the Labor Board; and
7. Lastly, an employee is not at will if that employee has an employment contract designating a specific period of time.

I summarily discussed Labor Code Penalties in a previous post describing several of California's more common wage and hour penalties and their respective remedies. Here, I will discuss in greater detail what is commonly referred to as a "waiting time penalty."

When potential clients contact my Orange County Employment Law Firm, they usually just want what they are owed (in the form of unpaid wages, unpaid overtime, etc.) However, most clients never knew that when an employee separates from an employer, whether by termination or resignation, he/she must be paid all wages that are owed at the time of separation. This is true both in the case of termination or resignation, but the time frame for each to be paid in full is slightly different.

If being fired, the employee is entitled to all wages owed at the time of his or her termination. If the employee is resigning, he or she must be paid all wages due within 72 hours of resigning. If all wages are not paid within these time constraints, the employee, in addition to being able to recover all wages he or she is owed, is also entitled to a waiting time penalty. California's waiting time penalty entitles the employee to receive up to 30 days of wages, which means just that - thirty days of wages, not one month's pay!