California Remote Workers Can Sue For Discrimination In The County They Work

As one way of advancing the express purpose of the California Fair Employment and Housing Act to provide effective remedies for discrimination at the workplace, a special venue provision allows plaintiffs to file a lawsuit “in any county in the state in which the unlawful practice is alleged to have been committed, in the county in which the records relevant to the practice are maintained and administered, or in the county in which the aggrieved person would have worked … but for the unlawful practice.” § 12965, subd. (c)(3) This provision has been interpreted broadly to allow remote workers to file a lawsuit for discrimination or any other type of violation of FEHA in the same county where they work remotely, even if their employer is located way outside that county.

Under the California Supreme Court case Brown v Superior Court (1984) case, the special provisions of this FEHA venue law “control in cases involving FEHA claims joined with non-FEHA claims arising from the same facts.” Thus, even if a remote worker files a lawsuit that contains non-FEHA claims (such as wage and other labor code violations, a defamation claim, etc…) along with at least one FEHA claim, he can still file that case in the same county where he resides and works out from.  Showing that all these claims arise from the same set of facts is usually easy because these claims do involve the same parties (aggrieved employee and employer) and essentially the same set of facts regarding that employee’s employment.

The Malloy v Superior Court (2022) case, which involved pregnancy discrimination allegations recognized the need to interpret the FEHA venue provision liberally in order to afford the aggrieved employees the greatest protection in filing a lawsuit and also in light of the remote work becoming ever so more common in the post-pandemic world.

This venue rule will surely remind employers that they won’t escape liability for discriminating against a remote worker, just because it would be too hard for that worker to sue in the venue where the company is located.