In almost 200 civil trials in over 45 years, I have watched jurors lean forward at one particular moment: when it becomes clear that no one at the company looked the employee in the eye before deciding to fire them. That moment is becoming more common, and more important, as employers lean on artificial intelligence, scoring systems, and “automated decision-making” tools to manage performance, discipline, and terminations.
California’s at-will rule has more exceptions than people realize. California is an at-will employment state. That means either side can generally end the relationship at any time, for almost any reason. But “almost” does a lot of work in that sentence. An employer cannot fire someone for a reason that violates public policy (think: refusing to break the law, or filing a workers’ comp claim), for a reason that violates the Fair Employment and Housing Act (discrimination or harassment based on a protected characteristic), in retaliation for whistleblowing under Labor Code section 1102.5, or in breach of an implied promise of continued employment. Most wrongful termination cases I evaluate come down to proving whether one of these exceptions, and not the employer’s stated reason, motivated the firing.
The AI question is live now. It is not theoretical in the workplace. This year put Artificial Intelligence on display. California’s Legislature passed SB 7, but Governor Newsom vetoed it. It was titled the “No Robo Bosses Act,” and would have required meaningful human review before an automated system can support disciplining or firing a worker. Unfortunately, the governor called the bill overbroad and duplicative of existing law. A revised version, SB 947, is already moving through Sacramento. Until something like it is actually enacted, there is no California statute that specifically bars an employer from letting a program make the call. That does not mean workers are unprotected. It means protection only exists in decades-old doctrines. An algorithm is not a defense to a discrimination claim, a retaliation claim, or a public-policy claim. In my experience, it is often evidence of recklessness a jury can hold against the company.
What I look for in evaluating one of these cases. I want the personnel file, the full performance review history, and, increasingly, a straight answer to one question: who, or what, made the decision, and did a human being meaningfully review it before it was final? If the honest answer is “the system flagged it and HR signed off,” that is powerful material in front of a jury. Most jurors go to work every day. They do not like the idea that a spreadsheet can do the firing, and that instinct works strongly in a plaintiff’s favor at trial.
A related trap: misclassification and timing. California’s minimum wage rose to $16.90 per hour on January 1, 2026, pushing the minimum salary for exempt employees to $70,304 per year. I regularly see termination used against an employee who made a misclassification or overtime complaint. That is rarely a coincidence. It is the kind of retaliation Labor Code section 1102.5 was written to address.
If you believe you were terminated for an unlawful reason, whether a person made the call or a piece of software did, the timeline and the paper trail matter more than people think, and both start disappearing the moment you walk out the door. Call my office at (714) 673-6500 or visit juryattorney.com/contact-us/ to talk through what happened and what your options are.
