Full title: Paula Vegas et al., Plaintiffs and Appellants, v. YAPSTONE, INC., Defendant and Respondent.
Court: California Court of Appeals, First District, Second Division
Date published: Jun 30, 2021
Facts
YapStone, Inc. is a payment services company located in Walnut Creek, California. YapStone hired Marcela Vega as an accounting associate in December 2014. Paula Vega, Marcela’s older sister, was hired in February 2015, to work in the company’s call center and subsequently moved to the position of online risk fraud analyst. According to their declarations, the sisters lived together and Paula had raised Marcela “like a mother.”
Marcela was granted a leave of absence beginning August 31, 2016, to travel to Colombia, the sisters’ country of origin, for a second opinion on treatment for carpal tunnel syndrome and epicondylitis. A doctor detected a hernia during a physical examination, and Marcela underwent surgery on October 18, 2016, then developed sepsis and pancreatitis and was placed in the intensive care unit. When she began to experience post-surgical complications, Paula advised her manager at YapStone that she might need to go to Colombia and he told her “not to worry, that family came first.”
Issue
Decision
The trial court concluded that Paula’s causes of action for wrongful termination and failure to take all reasonable steps necessary to prevent discrimination necessarily failed because the underlying cause of action for associational disability discrimination did not survive summary adjudication. Paula makes no argument regarding these causes of action except to note the Rope and Castro-Ramirez courts’ conclusions that causes of action for wrongful termination and failure to prevent discrimination survived where claims for associational disability discrimination survived. Our determination that summary adjudication was proper as to Paula’s associational disability claim necessarily means it was proper as to the wrongful termination and failure to prevent discrimination causes of action as well.
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