Question: Please read the provided case excerpt for State v. Thomasina and answer the following questions. Outline for a Case Brief 1. Facts a) What happened

Please read the provided case excerpt for State v. Thomasina and answer the following questions.

Outline for a Case Brief

1. Facts

a) What happened with the people involved in this case?

b) What was decided by the courts below? (aka procedural history)

2.Issue: What question was the Court addressing?

3. Decision: What did the Court decide?

4. Reason: Why did the Court make the decision it made?

State v. Thomasina's

Supreme Court of California

I.

From May 2010 to April 2014, complainant P.A.U. worked as a bartender at Thomasina's, Inc., a nightclub in Orange County. ... On April 5, 2014, P.A.U. complained to Marx that she had not been paid wages owed for her previous three shifts of work. Marx responded by threatening to report P.A.U. to immigration authorities, terminating her employment, and telling her never to return to the club. In June 2014, P.A.U. filed a complaint against Marx and Thomasina's with [Division of Labor Standards Enforcement] DLSE, which opened an investigation. After determining that Marx's immigration-based threats[***3] and termination of P.A.U. violated California law, DLSE notified Marx and Thomasina's of proposed remedies, including payment of lost wages to P.A.U., reinstatement of P.A.U.'s previous position, and payment of civil penalties to P.A.U. and DLSE. After Marx and Thomasina's declined to accept DLSE's proposed remedies, the Labor Commissioner sued them for violations of the Labor Code, including retaliation in violation of section 1102.5(b).

The trial court entered an order granting in part the Labor Commissioner's application for default judgment but ruled against the Labor Commissioner on the section 1102.5(b) claim. The court held that the Labor Commissioner did not state a valid cause of action under section 1102.5(b) because P.A.U. reported her complaints to her employer rather than a government agency. The Labor Commissioner appealed.

The Court of Appeal held that the trial court had relied on an outdated version of section 1102.5(b) and that the current version of the law protects[*722] disclosures made to one's employer. The Court of Appeal nonetheless affirmed the trial court's judgment on the section 1102.5(b) claim, concluding that a private employee's report of unlawful activity directly to his or her wrongdoing employer is not a protected disclosure under section 1102.5(b). The court[***4] reasoned that the term "disclose" requires "the revelation of something new, or at least believed by the discloser to be new, to the person or agency to whom the disclosure is made." The court explained that Marx, as the owner of the nightclub, "was at least aware ofif not responsible forthe non-payment of wages" and that an "'employee's report to the employee's supervisor about the supervisor's own wrongdoing is not a "disclosure" and is not protected whistleblowing activity, because the employer already knows about his or her wrongdoing.'" ...

II.

The Legislature enacted section 1102.5 in 1984 to provide whistleblowers with protection from employer retaliation. ...

In full, section 1102.5(b) provides: "An employer, or any person acting on behalf of the employer, shall not retaliate against an employee for disclosing information, or because the employer believes that the[***7] employee disclosed or may disclose information, to a government or law enforcement agency, to a person with authority over the employee or another employee who has the authority to investigate, discover, or correct the violation or noncompliance, or for providing information to, or testifying before, any public body conducting an investigation, hearing, or inquiry, if the employee has reasonable cause to believe that the information discloses a violation of state or federal statute, or a violation of or noncompliance with a local, state, or federal rule or regulation, regardless of whether disclosing the information is part of the employee's job duties."...

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State v. Thomasina's

In this case, the Court of Appeal relied on Mize-Kurzman and sought to distinguish Hager on the ground that Hager focused on whether section 1102.5 includes a "'first report' rule"that is, whether whistleblower protections apply only to the first employee to report wrongdoing, such that a "disclosure" cannot include information previously reported by other employees. (Hager, supra, 228 Cal.App.4th at p. 1550.) The Court of Appeal also reasoned that because Hager, like Mize-Kurzman but unlike the present case, involved a public employee, section 1102.5(e) governed the court's analysis and protected an employee's "report" of wrongdoing.

III.

(1) When interpreting a statute, we adopt the construction that best reflects the Legislature's purpose....

A.

(2) We begin by examining the text of the statute. The Court of Appeal held that the word "disclosure" means "the revelation of something new, or at least believed by the discloser to be new, to the person or agency to whom the disclosure is made." But dictionary definitions of "disclose" include "to make openly known" (4 Oxford English Dict. (2d ed. 1989) p. 738, col. 1) and to "open up to general knowledge" (Webster's 3d New Internat. Dict. (2002) p. 645, col. 2). The Labor Commissioner argues that according to these definitions the information disclosed need not be previously unknown to the recipient. We agree. To "make [something] openly known" (4 Oxford English Dict., supra, p. 738, col. 1) or "open [something] up to general knowledge" (Webster's 3d New Internat. Dict., supra, p. 645, col. 2) does not require that the "something" be unknown to the current recipient...

B.

(3) Where a statute is subject to "more than one reasonable interpretation, we consider 'the ostensible objectives to be achieved by the statute, the evils to be remedied, the legislative history, public policy, contemporaneous administrative construction and the statutory scheme of which the statute is a[*728] part.'"

about violations of the law]; Sen. Com. on Industrial Relations, Analysis of Assem. Bill No. 2452 (1983-1984 Reg. Sess.) as amended Apr. 26, 1984, pp. 1-2 [bill protects "providing information" to a government agency and "reporting crimes"]; Dept. of Industrial Relations, DLSE, Enrolled Bill Rep. on Assem. Bill No. 2452 (1983-1984 Reg. Sess.) Aug. 22, 1984, p. 1 [intent of bill is to protect workers who "report[] crimes" by making "complaints" to the Labor Commissioner].)...

Amendments to section 1102.5(b) in 2013, which are directly implicated by this case, further support a broad reading of the term "disclose." In that[*729] year, three proposed bills sought to amend section 1102.5(b): Senate Bill No. 666 (2013-2014 Reg. Sess.) (Senate Bill 666), Assembly Bill[***18] No. 263 (2013-2014 Reg. Sess.) (Assembly Bill 263), and Senate Bill No. 496 (2013-2014 Reg. Sess.) (Senate Bill 496). The first two bills centered on immigration-related protections; the third focused on expanding whistleblower protections to cover internal disclosures. The section 1102.5 amendments within the three bills were closely related, with each bill containing changes to section 1102.5(b) originally proposed by Senate Bill 496 and a provision that those changes would take effect through whichever bill was enacted last. (Stats. 2013, ch. 577, 5, 5.5, 7; Stats. 2013, ch. 732, 6, 6.5, 9; Stats. 2013, ch. 781, 4, 4.1, 5.) Because these three bills were enacted at the same time on the same subject, we read them as having a common policy goal and an intention to take effect together. (1A Singer and Singer, Statutes and Statutory Construction (7th ed. 2013) 23:18 ["If the same legislative session enacts two or more acts on the same subject they are presumed to embody the same policy and have been intended to have effect together."].) As enacted, Assembly Bill 263 declared: "It is in the public policy interest of the State of California that workers be able to report concerns to their employers without fear of retaliation or discrimination." (Stats. 2013, ch. 732, 1, subd. (h).) The Legislature's stated aim to protect workers[***19] who "report concerns to their employers" (ibid.) is entitled to significant weight in discerning the statute's purpose.

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State v. Thomasina's

The 2013 amendments also expanded whistleblower protections beyond disclosures made to a government or law enforcement agency to include disclosures made "to a person with authority over the employee or another employee who has the authority to investigate, discover, or correct the violation." ( 1102.5(b), as amended by Stats. 2013, ch. 732, 6.) As noted, the statute does not limit its protections to a disclosure directed to a person with the authority to "discover" the alleged violation (i.e., a person who previously did not know about the alleged violation); instead, it also protects a disclosure made to a person with the authority to "investigate ... or correct" the violation, even if the disclosure does not cause the person to "discover" the violation. (Ibid.)...

Conversely, an employee may reasonably feel more willing to approach an employer about workplace safety hazards, unpaid wages, or overtime violations knowing that his or her coworkers were also disclosing the same unlawful activity. An employer may also be more likely to ameliorate violations, and less able to sweep them under the rug, when multiple employees have disclosed the same wrongdoing. The Court of Appeal decision would limit the ability of employees to report violations, corroborate a coworker's disclosure, or encourage their employers to remedy violations of[***22] the law.

Although it is the Legislature's prerogative to impose such limitations, nothing in the legislative history indicates an intent to do so. In developing the statute, the relevant committees spoke clearly and repeatedly about the purposes and reasoning behind the enactment and expansion of section 1102.5(b): to protect workers, to encourage disclosure, and to promote compliance with employment-related laws and regulations. ...

Moreover, the language of section 1102.5(b) does not support a "first known report" rule. The only reference to an employee's state of mind in section 1102.5(b) is the requirement that the employee "has reasonable cause to believe that the information discloses a [legal] violation." (Ibid.) The statute thus does not protect employees who do not believe or who unreasonably believe that the information they are disclosing shows a violation of the law. However, there is no indication that an employee must also have reasonable cause to believe that he or she is the first to report the alleged violation, and we see no basis for reading such a requirement into the statute.

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State v. Thomasina's

The Court of Appeal's interpretation risks limiting internal disclosures, as employees may fear that reporting wrongdoing to their employers, who may know of the alleged violations, would leave them unprotected under section 1102.5(b). Although employees might instead report the violations to a government agency, the Legislature's 2013 amendments expanded antiretaliation protections to cover internal disclosures, simultaneously providing employees with protection and employers with the opportunity to correct wrongdoing without government involvement. ...

In sum, we hold that a protected disclosure under section 1102.5(b) encompasses reports or complaints of a violation made to an employer or agency even if the recipient[***30] already knows of the violation. We further conclude that complainant P.A.U. made a disclosure protected by section 1102.5(b). And we disapprove Mize-Kurzman v. Marin Community College Dist., supra, 202 Cal.App.4th 832 to the extent it is inconsistent with today's opinion.

CONCLUSION

We remand this case to the Court of Appeal for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.

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