This week, a California Court of Appeal found that the plaintiff employee was entitled to a full trial on his wrongful termination claim, concluding that California public policy in favor of the employer's duty to pay overtime wages protects an employee from termination for a mistaken but good faith claim to overtime wages.

As the facts are set out in the Court's opinion, and with the advantage of hindsight, one can speculate that both the employee and the Company believed they were doing the right thing. The plaintiff, Manuel Barbosa, started working at IMPCO as a carburetor assembler. At the time of his termination, he worked as a "cell leader" supervising up to eight other carburetor assemblers.