Category: Daily News

The California Attorney General has sent a guidance letter, dated August 10, 2026, to city attorneys, mayors, city managers, county counsel, and county administrative officers statewide, laying out local governments’ legal obligations to include people with disabilities in emergency planning, response, and recovery. The letter, issued by the Civil Rights Enforcement Section of the California Department of Justice, comes as Bonta’s office says it continues to receive complaints that the needs of Californians with disabilities are being overlooked in wildfire, earthquake, and other emergency planning across the state.

The letter’s central legal point is that accommodations for people with disabilities cannot be an afterthought handled case-by-case once a disaster hits. Citing a 2011 federal district court order against the City of Los Angeles and a similar 2013 ruling against New York City, the letter states that ad hoc accommodations requested only at the time of an emergency are “both legally inadequate and practically unrealistic.” Instead, under Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act (42 U.S.C. § 12101 et seq.) and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act (29 U.S.C. § 794), local governments must affirmatively anticipate the needs of residents with disabilities and build accommodations into emergency plans in advance, covering notification, evacuation, transportation, sheltering, and reintegration into the community. The letter traces this obligation to the Ninth Circuit’s 1996 decision in Crowder v. Kitagawa, which held that a facially neutral state policy can still deny meaningful access under the ADA if it disproportionately burdens people with disabilities.

The letter also flags a liability point some local governments may overlook: public entities remain legally responsible for disability discrimination committed by the private and nonprofit organizations they rely on during emergencies. Under federal regulations, Title II’s obligations attach to third-party contractors providing government services, so a city that contracts with a nonprofit to distribute recovery information can be held liable if that nonprofit’s services, physical location, or communications are not accessible.

Beyond the ADA and Section 504, the letter catalogs a lengthy list of other applicable laws local officials should know: California Government Code section 11135, which bars disability discrimination by recipients of state funding and was amended by regulation in 2024; the California Emergency Services Act (Gov. Code, §§ 8550–8668) and its implementing Standard Emergency Management System regulations; Education Code requirements that school districts include disability adaptations in their Comprehensive School Safety Plans; federal closed-captioning rules that now extend to internet-based streaming, meaning emergency video posted to a public entity’s website may need captions; and a Government Code requirement that 911 dispatch centers have equipment able to serve callers with hearing disabilities.

The bulk of the letter is a detailed, practical planning checklist organized around four phases. On communication, it recommends redundant alert methods beyond cell phone alerts (including door-to-door notification), advance arrangements for sign language interpreters and real-time captioning, and pre-drafted plain-language evacuation instructions free of jargon and acronyms. On evacuation, it calls for identifying accessible transportation resources in advance, planning for residents in high-rise buildings without elevator access during outages, and partnering with organizations like Centers for Independent Living that already know where residents with disabilities are located. On sheltering, the letter recommends assessing the physical accessibility of every pre-designated shelter site, stocking backup power for medical equipment like oxygen concentrators and electric wheelchairs, keeping refrigerated storage for medications, and training shelter staff on service animal rights and assisting with daily living activities. On reintegration, it recommends advance agreements with hotels to hold accessible rooms and coordination with social service providers to maintain continuity of care for displaced residents.

The letter closes by pointing local officials toward a substantial list of existing state and federal resources rather than requiring jurisdictions to build everything from scratch, including the California Governor’s Office of Emergency Services’ state emergency plan and its dedicated Integrated Evacuation Planning Guide for people with access and functional needs, the California Department of Rehabilitation’s disaster preparedness resources, and the U.S. Department of Justice’s ADA emergency planning guidance. The letter urges jurisdictions to involve people with disabilities directly in planning and training exercises, not merely as a “box to check,” and to consider hiring qualified outside experts to help build comprehensive plans. Questions about the letter can be directed to Michael L. Newman, Senior Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Enforcement Section, which includes the department’s Disability Rights Bureau.

This summary is provided for general informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. Local governments and officials should consult the full guidance letter and applicable law directly, and may wish to consult legal counsel regarding their jurisdiction’s specific emergency planning obligations.

The Los Angeles County Employees Retirement Association (LACERA), the nation’s largest county pension system with a portfolio exceeding $72 billion and more than 185,000 members, operates under the County Employees Retirement Law of 1937 (CERL; Gov. Code, § 31450 et seq.), which Los Angeles County adopted by ordinance shortly after CERL’s enactment. LACERA has more than 400 employees of its own, whose salaries and benefits make up the large majority of its administrative costs, all paid from the fund’s investment earnings rather than the County’s general fund. Since 1978, LACERA has hired its own fund-management staff under CERL provisions authorizing retirement boards to “appoint” necessary personnel, and after a 1996 legal opinion concluded the County had no authority to override LACERA’s classification and salary decisions, the County did not dispute that position for over two decades, removing LACERA employees from County collective bargaining units in the process.

That practice broke down in 2018, when a new County Counsel opinion disavowed the County’s prior position, concluding LACERA lacked constitutional or statutory authority to dictate classification and compensation decisions binding on the County. Acting on that new view, the County’s Board of Supervisors refused several of LACERA’s 2018 and, again, 2021 requests to create new job classifications or raise salaries for information technology, management, and legal positions, approving some requests only at reduced salary levels or denying them outright based on internal alignment with comparable County classifications.

In October 2021, LACERA sought declaratory relief and a writ of mandate compelling the County to implement its classification and salary decisions. The Los Angeles County Superior Court denied relief, following the Court of Appeal’s earlier decision in Westly v. Board of Administration (2003) 105 Cal.App.4th 1095, which had construed a retirement board’s constitutional “plenary authority” over “administration of the system” narrowly, as reaching only fund management and benefit delivery, not staff classification or compensation. The trial court likewise held that CERL’s requirement that retirement system staff “be included in the salary ordinance” adopted by the county did not impose a ministerial duty on the Board of Supervisors to simply adopt whatever salary LACERA proposed.

The Court of Appeal reversed, declining to follow Westly. It read the state constitution’s grant of “plenary authority” broadly enough to give retirement boards complete control over classification and compensation for their own staff, and read CERL’s salary-ordinance-inclusion language as imposing a mandatory duty on the County to adopt LACERA’s salary decisions. (Los Angeles County Employees Retirement Assn. v. County of Los Angeles (2024) 102 Cal.App.5th 1167.) The California Supreme Court granted review to resolve the resulting conflict with Westly.

In the case of Los Angeles County Employees Retirement Association v. County of Los Angeles, No. S286264 (Cal. Sup. Ct., August 2026) — the California Supreme Court reversed the judgment of the Court of Appeal, restoring the trial court’s judgment denying LACERA’s petition.

Writing for the majority, Justice Corrigan held that Westly’s narrower construction of California Constitution article XVI, section 17 (added by Proposition 162, the 1992 California Pension Protection Act) was correct. Reviewing the constitutional text as a whole, the Court explained that section 17’s grant of “plenary authority” over “administration of the system” is defined and limited by the eight subdivisions that follow it, all of which concern investment management, actuarial services, and the delivery of benefits to members and beneficiaries — not staff compensation. The Court found this reading confirmed by Proposition 162’s ballot materials, which framed the initiative almost entirely around preventing the state from “raiding” or “looting” pension fund assets to balance budgets, with no indication voters intended to shift classification and salary authority away from county governing bodies. The Legislative Analyst’s own impartial summary described the measure as giving retirement boards “complete authority for administration of the system’s assets,” language the Court found materially narrower than the sweeping personnel authority LACERA claimed.

The Court also held its interpretation was necessary to harmonize section 17 with the state constitution’s home rule provisions, which give county governing bodies, including charter counties like Los Angeles, authority to fix the number, compensation, and terms of employment for county employees. Because CERL itself defines retirement system staff as “county employees” whose compensation must be included in the county’s salary ordinance, and because no case had ever held otherwise, the Court found LACERA’s broader reading would work an unacknowledged partial repeal of the home rule provisions, a result courts should avoid absent a clear, irreconcilable conflict. The Court found this conclusion consistent with its own recent decision in Alameda County Deputy Sheriff’s Assn. v. Alameda County Employees’ Retirement Assn. (2020) 9 Cal.5th 1032, which had similarly read a retirement board’s “plenary authority” as bounded by the legislative design Congress set out in CERL rather than as license to depart from it.

Turning to the statutory question, the Court held Government Code section 31522.1 — which authorizes retirement boards to “appoint” needed staff hired from county civil service lists, while directing that such staff “shall be county employees” and “shall be included in the salary ordinance” the county adopts — does not impose a mandatory duty on county boards of supervisors to adopt whatever classification or salary a retirement board recommends. The Court found the statute’s plain text supported only a narrower, undisputed duty: that the county’s salary ordinance must budgetarily include retirement system staff positions at all, not that it must adopt the specific salary figures the retirement board proposes. Because setting compensation for civil service employees has long been treated as a discretionary, legislative act reserved to a county’s governing body, and because nothing in section 31522.1’s text or history clearly displaced that arrangement, the Court declined to read a ministerial duty into the statute’s use of the word “shall.” The Court did not foreclose all judicial recourse, however, noting county salary and classification decisions remain reviewable for abuse of discretion, and a writ of mandate may still issue if a county unreasonably delays or withholds action on a retirement board’s recommendations altogether.

Justice Groban’s dissent, joined by Justices Liu and Evans, argued the majority’s reading disregarded roughly four decades of consistent practice in which the County itself acknowledged LACERA’s authority over its own staff’s classification and compensation, including the County’s own 1996 acquiescence in outside counsel’s opinion to that effect. The majority responded to this history directly, concluding the record did not support characterizing that practice as a uniform, decades-long “shared understanding,” and that even a consistent past practice could not itself override the constitutional and statutory text the Court found controlling.

The Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) has issued a slip opinion concluding that neither Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act nor Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) requires states to treat patients with severe mental illness or disabilities in the “most integrated setting” appropriate to their needs — and that federal regulations imposing that requirement, in place in some form since 1978, exceed what Congress actually authorized. The opinion, signed by Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Lanora C. Pettit, was written for the White House Counsel’s Office in response to a formal request for OLC’s legal views on the so-called “integration mandate.”

OLC opinions are formal legal advice the department’s Office of Legal Counsel gives to the President and executive agencies; they bind Executive Branch practice going forward but are not court rulings and do not themselves change what a federal court would hold. This opinion answers three questions the White House Counsel’s Office posed: whether the Supreme Court’s 1999 decision in Olmstead v. L.C. ex rel. Zimring, 527 U.S. 581, already settled that the statutes impose an integration mandate; if not, whether Congress could constitutionally impose one; and whether Congress in fact did so. OLC answers the first and third questions no, and concludes that because there is no statutory mandate to interpret, it does not need to resolve the constitutional question directly — though it says the serious constitutional doubts such a mandate would raise reinforce its reading of the statutory text.

The opinion’s reading of Olmstead is narrower than how the decision is understood by most federal courts. Olmstead itself was fractured: a five-justice majority held that “unjustified institutional isolation of persons with disabilities is a form of discrimination” under Title II, but only a four-justice plurality, led by Justice Ginsburg, went on to say that community-based treatment becomes mandatory once a state’s own treatment professionals find it appropriate, the patient does not object, and it can reasonably be accommodated given the state’s resources. Because that three-factor test never commanded a majority, OLC applies the Supreme Court’s “narrowest grounds” rule from Marks v. United States to conclude Olmstead’s binding holding is limited to the bare proposition that unjustified institutionalization can be discriminatory — without settling what counts as adequate justification for treating a patient in an institution. OLC acknowledges this view cuts against how most federal circuit courts have treated Olmstead’s plurality language as binding, but says that disagreement is the kind of “contested legal question” the political branches and courts are meant to work out over time.

Turning to the statutory text, the opinion argues “discrimination” in Section 504 and Title II, understood by its ordinary meaning when each law was passed, means treating similarly situated people differently without adequate justification — not an affirmative duty to provide services in a particular setting. It points to Title III of the ADA, which explicitly requires public accommodations to operate in “the most integrated setting appropriate,” and argues Title II’s omission of that same language was intentional. Under OLC’s reading, a state does not discriminate by treating a patient with mental illness in an institution so long as it has any non-arbitrary reason for doing so — including resource and space constraints, safety concerns, or the patient’s own medical needs — and disability discrimination occurs only when disability itself, rather than the needs disability creates, is the sole basis for the treatment setting chosen.

The opinion separately walks through why reading an integration mandate into the statutes would raise serious constitutional problems under three possible sources of congressional power: Section 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment, which the opinion says would require a legislative record showing a pattern of irrational state discrimination that a universal integration mandate does not appear to have; the Interstate Commerce Clause, which the opinion argues does not reach a purely in-state choice about where to treat a patient; and the Spending Clause, under which conditions on federal funds must be stated unambiguously, which OLC says neither statute does with respect to treatment setting. Because of these doubts, OLC applies the constitutional avoidance canon to reinforce its narrower statutory reading.

The opinion’s bottom line is that the Department of Health and Human Services’ regulation at 45 C.F.R. § 84.76(b) and the Department of Justice’s regulation at 28 C.F.R. § 35.130(d) — the regulations that first created the “most integrated setting” requirement and that the Olmstead Court leaned on in reaching its own holding — exceed the authority Congress gave those agencies, since Section 504 authorizes only regulations “necessary to carry out” the antidiscrimination provision and a general integration requirement is not necessary to eliminate discrimination as OLC defines it. The opinion recommends the regulations be rescinded, along with related sub-regulatory guidance the Department of Justice has issued interpreting Olmstead broadly, on the ground that such guidance never had the force of law in the first place. The opinion also notes that DOJ’s Civil Rights Division has for two decades used the integration mandate and Olmstead to secure consent decrees and settlement agreements committing roughly a dozen states to specific deinstitutionalization benchmarks — agreements this opinion does not purport to unwind, but whose legal foundation it calls into question going forward.

The opinion is explicit about its own limits: it addresses only patients with severe mental illness or developmental disabilities of the kind at issue in Olmstead, expressly reserving how its reasoning would apply to physical disabilities, and it states it is not questioning the general constitutionality of Section 504 or Title II outside the integration-mandate context. It also acknowledges, more than once, that its interpretation departs from the near-uniform practice of federal appellate courts and from HHS and DOJ’s own consistent position since the late 1970s, framing that departure as the product of an independent legal analysis conducted under current Supreme Court methodology (including 2024’s Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, which ended judicial deference to agency interpretations of ambiguous statutes) rather than as a rejection of Olmstead itself.

This summary is provided for general informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. An OLC opinion states the Executive Branch’s own legal position; it does not overrule Olmstead v. L.C. or the federal appellate decisions applying it, and any change to existing regulations, consent decrees, or DOJ enforcement practice would require separate agency or judicial action. Readers should consult the full opinion for its complete legal reasoning and qualifications.

Doyle Archer, insured by Farmers Insurance Exchange (Farmers) under a policy with $15,000 per-person bodily injury liability limits, rear-ended Kathleen Ann Wood’s vehicle at a red light in Hesperia, California, pushing it into another car. On July 30, 2021, Wood’s attorney sent Farmers a letter offering to settle Wood’s personal injury claim against Archer for the “total available policy limit of $100,000, or less,” conditioned on written acceptance by a stated deadline and delivery of a declaration confirming the available policy limits; the letter added that “[i]f this demand exceeds the policy, then we hereby make a policy limit demand.” On August 25, 2021, within the deadline, Farmers sent a letter agreeing to pay Wood the maximum $15,000 available to her individually under the policy’s per-person limit (with the remaining $15,000 of the policy’s $30,000 per-accident limit going to other passengers involved in the collision) and enclosing the requested declaration pages.

After Farmers’ acceptance, Archer completed an asset declaration, submitted at Wood’s request, representing that he owned one vehicle and had $5,000 in the bank; Wood’s own investigation later identified other assets Archer did not disclose. Wood refused to sign the settlement paperwork and, on November 29, 2021, sued Archer directly. When Farmers’ subsequent demand that Wood honor the settlement went unanswered, Farmers sued Wood for breach of contract, declaratory relief, and specific performance; the two actions were consolidated in San Bernardino County Superior Court.

Farmers moved for summary judgment, or in the alternative summary adjudication, on its declaratory relief cause of action, arguing it had fully performed every term of Wood’s written settlement offer and that a binding agreement resulted. The trial court denied the motion, and Farmers petitioned the Court of Appeal for a writ of mandate. The Court of Appeal issued an order to show cause why the requested relief should not be granted, teeing up the single question whether Farmers’ August 25, 2021 letter accepting Wood’s policy-limits demand created a binding settlement agreement.

In the published case of Farmers Insurance Exchange v. The Superior Court for the County of San Bernardino, No. E087128 (Cal. Ct. App., 4th Dist., Div. 2, August 2026) — the Court of Appeal granted Farmers’ petition for writ of mandate, directing the trial court to vacate its order denying summary judgment or adjudication and enter a new order granting Farmers summary adjudication on its declaratory relief claim. This opinion was originally filed on July 9, 2026 and was not initially certified for publication; on August 4, 2026, the Fourth Appellate District, Division Two, ordered it published, explaining in an attached order that the opinion advances a new construction of governing law, addresses an apparent conflict in the law, and involves a legal issue of continuing public interest. It is now citable authority.

Writing for a unanimous panel, Justice McKinster reviewed the summary adjudication question de novo, applying the settled rule that a writ of mandate will issue where denial of summary adjudication would force trial on a nonactionable claim, citing Rancho Cucamonga Central School Dist. v. Superior Court (2025) 116 Cal.App.5th 718. Because a settlement agreement is governed by ordinary contract principles, requiring mutual consent to the same terms judged by objective, outward manifestations rather than either party’s subjective understanding, citing Monster Energy Co. v. Schechter (2019) 7 Cal.5th 781 and Civil Code sections 1550 and 1580, the court found the undisputed correspondence between the parties established a binding agreement as a matter of law: Wood’s counsel offered to settle for the “policy limit” if her stated $100,000 figure exceeded what the policy actually provided, and Farmers accepted by tendering its actual $15,000 per-person limit along with the declaration pages Wood’s letter had required.

The panel rejected Wood’s argument that Farmers’ response was actually a counteroffer, since it offered $15,000 rather than the $100,000 stated in her letter, explaining that her own letter’s plain language made clear a demand for “the policy limit” applied whenever her stated figure exceeded the actual coverage available, so Farmers’ tender of the true per-person limit tracked, rather than varied from, the terms she had proposed. The court found this case squarely governed by CSAA Ins. Exchange v. Hodroj (2021) 72 Cal.App.5th 272, which held that where parties agree on a settlement’s material terms intending to later reduce the agreement to a more formal writing, a later disagreement over the content of that formal writing does not retroactively void the underlying agreement or transform a rejected draft into a counteroffer that discharges the original deal.

The panel likewise rejected Wood’s alternative argument that, even if a contract was formed, Archer’s incomplete asset declaration breached the agreement and gave her the right to rescind. The court explained Wood’s original settlement offer was never made contingent on any asset declaration from Archer at all; that requirement arose only afterward, and its inclusion did not operate as a novation displacing the settlement Farmers had already accepted, again citing Hodroj’s holding that later-added terms in a follow-up writing do not unwind an already-binding settlement. Because no triable issue of material fact remained as to contract formation, the panel held Farmers was entitled to summary adjudication on its declaratory relief cause of action, granted the petition, and awarded Farmers its costs.

Sylvia Bedrossian worked as a staff attorney for the State Compensation Insurance Fund (the Fund) beginning in 2004, eventually rising to attorney IV, a position responsible for litigating workers’ compensation cases involving confidential and sensitive information. Like all Fund employees, Bedrossian was required to complete annual cybersecurity training, and the Fund periodically sent randomized, simulated “phishing” test emails to its roughly 4,000 employees to assess their security awareness; clicking a link, replying, or opening an attachment in one of these test emails counted as a failure, and repeated failures could lead to discipline.

Between December 2021 and December 2022, Bedrossian failed three separate phishing tests, opening emails on her Fund-issued phone and clicking links in messages that purported to come from a non-Fund address requesting login credentials, from state vehicle registration, and from a WeWork account invitation the Fund did not actually use. After her first failure, the Fund required her to attend one-on-one remedial training with a security analyst; according to the administrative law judge’s later factual findings, Bedrossian was “accusatory and condescending” toward the analyst during that session, question her employment status and access to private information, and cut the session short, later sending an email accusing the Fund’s security department of trying to entrap employees. After her second and third failures, the Fund issued a notice of adverse action suspending Bedrossian without pay for five days, citing both the repeated test failures and her conduct toward the analyst as grounds for discipline under Government Code section 19572.

Bedrossian appealed her suspension to the State Personnel Board (SPB), which held an investigatory hearing before an administrative law judge (ALJ) at which both Bedrossian and the security analyst testified. The ALJ found Bedrossian not credible and the analyst credible, resolving the key factual disputes in the Fund’s favor, and concluded the Fund had proven multiple statutory grounds for discipline — inexcusable neglect of duty, discourteous treatment of another employee, willful disobedience, and other conduct discrediting the employer — while dismissing separate incompetency and insubordination charges the Fund had also alleged. Applying the factors for assessing an appropriate penalty set out in Skelly v. State Personnel Board, the ALJ found the five-day suspension appropriate, and the SPB adopted that recommendation.

Bedrossian then petitioned the Los Angeles County Superior Court for a writ of administrative mandamus, arguing the SPB acted without or in excess of its jurisdiction, denied her a fair hearing, and abused its discretion. The trial court determined that because state law did not require the SPB to hold a hearing on a suspension of five days or less, review under Code of Civil Procedure section 1094.5 was unavailable, and instead reviewed the petition as an ordinary writ of mandate under section 1085. The court found Bedrossian had forfeited several arguments — based on free speech, federal phishing law, wire fraud, the state’s larceny statute, and entrapment — by failing to raise them before the SPB, addressed those arguments on the merits anyway, and rejected them, and otherwise found no basis to disturb the SPB’s decision. The court denied the petition.

In the unpublished case of Bedrossian v. California State Personnel Board, No. B349445 (Cal. Ct. App., 2d Dist., Div. 1, July 2026) — the Court of Appeal affirmed the trial court’s order denying Bedrossian’s petition for writ of mandate. This opinion is marked “NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN THE OFFICIAL REPORTS” and, under California Rules of Court, rule 8.1115(a), may not be cited or relied upon by courts or parties except in the limited circumstances that rule allows.

Writing for a unanimous panel, Presiding Justice Rothschild first confirmed the trial court had applied the correct standard of review. Because the SPB was not legally required to hold a hearing on a suspension of five days or less under Government Code section 19576, administrative mandamus under Code of Civil Procedure section 1094.5 was unavailable, and the trial court correctly proceeded under the traditional mandamus standard of section 1085, which permits relief only where a petitioner clearly establishes a right to have discretion exercised in a particular manner, citing Taylor v. State Personnel Board (1980) 101 Cal.App.3d 498 and Coelho v. State Personnel Bd. (1989) 209 Cal.App.3d 968.

On the sufficiency of the evidence, the panel held Bedrossian forfeited any substantial-evidence challenge by failing to cite the record or explain why the evidence supporting the SPB’s findings was inadequate, offering only her own contrary factual assertions instead. On the merits of her argument that her conduct caused no harm to public service, the panel applied the framework from Skelly v. State Personnel Board (1975) 15 Cal.3d 194, which identifies harm, or risk of harm, to the public service as a key factor in assessing whether discipline is excessive. The court held it did not need to decide whether actual harm occurred, because repeated clicking on phishing test emails containing recognizable red flags was likely, if repeated, to compromise data the Fund has a fiduciary duty to protect, and because Bedrossian’s discourteous treatment of the security analyst independently harmed the Fund’s public service interests, citing Caveness v. State Personnel Board (1980) 113 Cal.App.3d 617, which held that discourtesy toward a supervisor or coworker injures the working relationship and is itself harmful to public service.

Finally, the panel agreed that Bedrossian forfeited her free speech, entrapment, wire fraud, and larceny arguments by not raising them before the SPB in the first instance, since an administrative agency must be given the opportunity to decide the issues before a party may raise them in later judicial review. The panel rejected Bedrossian’s argument that her February 2022 email accusing Fund staff of entrapment, which was in the administrative record, was itself sufficient to preserve an entrapment defense, holding that a litigant must explicitly raise a legal theory before the agency to avoid forfeiting it, rather than relying on an evidentiary exhibit that touches on the same subject. Finding no error in the trial court’s judgment, the panel affirmed and awarded the Fund its costs on appeal.