San Francisco Employment Law Firm Blog

The recent Silguero v. Creteguard, Inc., appellate decision from the Second Appellate district (Los Angeles County) is instructive on a less common issue arising out of the attempt by an employer to follow a non-compete agreement that the subject claimant signed with his former employer. In that case, shortly after claimant was terminated by his first employer, with whom he signed the non-compete agreement, she found employment with the defendant company. The first employer contacted the defendant and requested "cooperation" in enforcing the non-compete. As a result, claimant's employment was terminated by the defendant.

While the new employer had the best intentions of acting honestly and ethically toward the other company (previous employer) and trying to do the right thing, even though they suspected that the non-compete agreement might be unenforceable in California, the court still found that the future employer was liable for wrongful termination. The court's analysis largely relied on a very significant, and long standing public policy in California that protects the important legal right of persons to engage in businesses and occupations of their choosing and discourages circumvention of freedom to seek employment anywhere in the state.

The Court of Appeal further reminded the defendant-employer that a competitor may solicit another competitor's employees if they do use unlawful means or engage in acts of unfair competition. Thus, no actionable wrong is committed by a competitor who hires away his competitor's employees who are not under contract, as long as the inducement to leave the first employer is not accompanied by unlawful conduct.

Yesterday, I met with a client - a very pleasant lady in her mid thirties who was forced to quit from the SFMOMA (San Francisco Museum of Modern Arts) due to what appeared to be egregious violations of California disability laws at workplace. The former SFMOMA employee has been suffering from fairly severe scoliosis in her back and accompanying PTSD for several years. She submitted doctors' letters to her employer requesting the museum to provide her with reasonable accommodations, but they systematically ignored it for several years, openly accusing the employee of making her symptoms up and also telling her that unless she is crippled or has a terminal illness, she is not considered disabled and will not receive any special treatment. The accommodations requested were minimal - to allow the employee to take a few hours off per month to see her doctor in order to relief her back pain symptoms.

Out of curiosity, I asked my client to stand up and show me the curvature of her back, and I was surprised to find how noticeable the degenerative changes in her back were. I wonder if her employer ever bothered to look at her back...

This unprecedented ignorance of the disability laws at workplace that employs several hundreds of employees and that has been a distinguished establishment with national recognition for many years is unacceptable and should be changed. I am not sure if it's a wrong termination lawsuit or some involvement from the management that will trigger the change in the human resources management in that museum, but it seems to me that it's only a matter of time until such systematic disregard for disability laws will lead to significant liability on the part of the San Francisco's premier museum.