Unreported / Non-Citable
Background
Nydia Del Socorro Lazo worked at the same Canoga Park Carl's Jr. restaurant for over 34 years, starting in 1989 and continuing under Sun Gir Inc. (SGI) after it acquired the franchise in 2000. Fired at 76 with no prior discipline, she had spent her final four years on the midnight-to-8 a.m. graveyard shift as the sole cashier alongside one cook. She said she could not take duty-free breaks, leave the restaurant, or rely on the cook to run the register or serve drive-through customers.
In January 2023 SGI commissioned an independent loss-prevention audit of suspicious transactions rather than particular employees. The audit flagged Lazo and nine others; SGI terminated seven, including Lazo, while three resigned in lieu of termination. Suspended without pay on March 24, 2023, Lazo was terminated for theft on March 29 based on three February transactions she denied. SGI filled her shift with three younger existing employees. When she requested wage records, SGI produced a spreadsheet showing each paycheck's date, hours, gross pay, and net pay.
Lazo sued in May 2023 for age discrimination, meal-and-rest-break violations, inaccurate wage statements, unpaid wages at discharge, failure to produce wage records, and unfair or unlawful business practices. SGI moved for summary judgment in July 2024 and later added defenses based on the Monroe class-action settlement covering specified SGI wage-and-hour claims. In December 2024 the trial court granted summary judgment for SGI on all claims and denied Lazo's discovery motions as moot. Lazo appealed, abandoning her challenge to the costs award.
The Court’s Holding
The Court of Appeal affirmed summary adjudication only on age discrimination. SGI met its burden with a nondiscriminatory reason—audit evidence that Lazo mishandled transactions suggesting theft—and Lazo raised no triable issue that age motivated the firing. Evidence that the decision was mistaken or poorly investigated is not evidence of discriminatory intent, and the differing description of one incident did not materially shift SGI's justification. Her statistics and comparators failed: every flagged employee resigned or was terminated, those invited to reapply had conceded misconduct rather than disputing it as Lazo did, replacement by younger workers alone is insufficient, and the auditor's 'elderly female cashier' remark was at most benign.
The panel reversed on the meal-and-rest-break claims and their derivative claims. Even assuming SGI initially showed it provided off-duty breaks, Lazo's declaration and cook Junior Gonzales's testimony created triable disputes: the cook could not operate the register or cover her position, Lazo was not free to leave and remained on call through overnight lulls, and a written break policy does not satisfy the employer's duty to actually relieve her of all duty. The court reversed summary adjudication of the break claims and the derivative wage-statement, unpaid-wage, and unfair-competition claims, rejecting SGI's forfeiture argument.
The wage-record claim also survived because the spreadsheet omitted the inclusive pay-period dates required by Labor Code section 226, and Lazo raised a triable injury issue since she needed additional documents to determine which work dates each payment covered. The panel upheld the remaining procedural rulings: the amended answer caused no prejudice because the settlement defenses presented purely legal issues; Lazo did not make the mandatory continuance showing under Code of Civil Procedure section 437c(h) because she never requested a continuance or estimated the time needed for the redacted emails; and she showed no prejudice from the separate-statement defects. The judgment was reversed with directions to enter a new order granting summary adjudication only on age discrimination and denying it on the remaining claims, each side bearing its own costs.
Key Takeaways
- A termination can be unfair or mistaken without creating a triable age-discrimination claim; the employee still needs evidence that age caused the decision.
- A two-person overnight shift can create a triable break claim when the lone cashier must remain available for drive-through customers and the only coworker cannot operate the register.
- A wage spreadsheet satisfies Labor Code section 226 only if it contains every required item; omitting inclusive pay-period dates created accuracy and injury issues here.
- A party opposing summary judgment while discovery is pending must make the section 437c(h) continuance showing, including why the evidence matters, why it is unavailable, and how long obtaining it will take.
Why It Matters
The decision separates an employer's harsh treatment of a long-serving employee from the distinct proof required for age discrimination, and applies the duty-free-break standard to a two-person overnight shift: quiet periods and a written policy do not resolve summary judgment when the cashier remained responsible for customers with no qualified replacement.
The remand is not a final determination that SGI violated wage-and-hour laws; it restores the specified claims while the age-discrimination adjudication stands. The opinion left open whether the Monroe settlement defeats any revived claim, did not reach punitive damages, and did not address Labor Code section 1198.5 personnel records, which Lazo did not brief.