Pejman Saberin worked remotely from his home in Utah as an engineer for Alation, Inc., a data analysis and software company doing business in California, from September 2021 until his termination in October 2023. While returning from vacation, Saberin was arrested in Florida; his sister emailed Alation requesting additional time off, stating he had been injured in an accident, but Alation learned of the actual arrest through its own research. After Saberin was released from detention around October 24, 2023, Alation terminated his employment. The criminal case against him was dismissed in March 2024. Saberin sued in San Mateo County Superior Court, alleging Alation’s consideration of his arrest violated Government Code section 12952 and Labor Code section 432.7, both of which restrict an employer’s use of an arrest that did not result in conviction.

The parties stipulated to resolve the dispute through binding arbitration under two employment documents Saberin had signed, one of which stated it was “governed by the laws of the State of California” and required arbitration of employment-related claims “PURSUANT TO CALIFORNIA LAW.” Alation moved before the arbitrator to have California law declared inapplicable on extraterritoriality grounds, since Saberin worked exclusively from Utah and the termination decision was made by two Alation executives, Daniel Rose and Christos Mousouris, while they were both physically in Illinois (though Mousouris normally worked remotely from California). A third Alation employee, Liz Laber, who worked from California, provided “input” to that decision. The arbitrator agreed with Alation, reasoning that applying California law to a worker with no connection to the state, terminated by decision-makers acting entirely outside it, would produce an “absurd result.” Because the parties then stipulated they could identify no other state’s law that would support Saberin’s claims, the arbitrator entered an award requiring Saberin to take nothing.

Saberin petitioned the San Mateo County Superior Court to vacate the arbitration award under Code of Civil Procedure section 1286.2, subdivision (a)(4), arguing the arbitrator exceeded his powers by applying the wrong extraterritoriality test and by failing to conduct a statute-specific analysis of section 12952 and Labor Code section 432.7. The trial court denied the petition, finding the arbitrator had adequately considered Saberin’s connections to California and correctly applied the framework from Ward v. United Airlines, Inc., and that Saberin had not shown a violation of any statutory right sufficient to justify disturbing the award.

In the published case of Saberin v. Alation, Inc., No. A174549 (Cal. Ct. App., 1st Dist., Div. 5, July 2026) — the Court of Appeal affirmed the trial court’s order denying Saberin’s petition to vacate the arbitration award. The Opinion commences by noting “The growth in remote work spurred by the pandemic is well- documented. We now confront one of the many issues created by that growth: When do California’s employment laws protect remote workers who are terminated by employers with their “principal offices” in California?”

Reaching the merits, the panel first held the choice-of-law provision in Saberin’s Inventions Agreement did not resolve the case, since a contractual incorporation of California law presumptively incorporates California’s own presumption against extraterritorial application of its statutes, citing the federal district court’s reasoning in O’Connor v. Uber Technologies, Inc. (2014) 58 F.Supp.3d 989. The court then applied the statute-specific framework required by Ward v. United Airlines, Inc. (2020) 9 Cal.5th 732, which held courts must examine each statute’s text, purpose, and legislative history to determine what California connections suffice to trigger it, rather than applying a single all-purpose test. Neither Government Code section 12952 nor Labor Code section 432.7 specifies its own geographic reach in its text, but the panel found both statutes’ legislative history showed the Legislature intended to protect workers and applicants in California and to regulate employer conduct occurring in California. Because Saberin never worked in California, was arrested outside California, and reported to a supervisor working from Washington state, the statutes’ worker-protection purpose was not implicated; the only remaining question was whether Alation’s conduct — the termination decision itself — occurred in California.

On that question, the panel held it did not. The decision-makers, Rose and Mousouris, made the termination decision while both were physically in Illinois, and the panel declined to treat Laber’s undefined “input” from California, which the arbitrator found to be a “tenuous thread,” as sufficient to establish that the unlawful conduct occurred in-state; the court deferred to the arbitrator’s factual finding on that point under Moncharsh. The panel likewise rejected the argument that Mousouris’s status as a California-based remote employee was enough, distinguishing Campbell v. Arco Marine, Inc. (1996) 42 Cal.App.4th 1850 and a case addressing employers “shuttling” decision-makers out of state specifically to dodge California law, since nothing suggested Alation’s Illinois meeting was arranged for that purpose or that Saberin himself had any connection to California to begin with. The panel found this result consistent with, not contrary to, a FEHA regulation stating that out-of-state employees are unprotected unless the unlawful conduct occurred in California or was “ratified” by California-based decision-makers, since nothing showed Laber ratified or substantively participated in the termination decision.