In Allos v. Poway Unified School District, ordered published July 7, 2025, the Fourth District Court of Appeal, Division 1 affirmed summary judgment in favor of the defendant school district. The plaintiff, a senior business systems analyst for the district, started working at home when the COVID-19 Pandemic shut down the district's in-person operations in March 2020. After the district lifted the stay-at-home order later that year, the plaintiff requested that she be permitted to continue working exclusively remotely. Over the next two years, the district engaged in a series of interactive-process meetings with the plaintiff during which the district made various arrangements for the plaintiff to do some of her work at home, and to work in an isolated office. During the meetings, the plaintiff said she was not vaccinated. She initially claimed she was allergic to the vaccine. Her records showed, however, that the plaintiff was not allergic, but in fact refused the vaccine. The district ultimately agreed with the plaintiff that she would transition to full-time in-office work, and if she failed to do so she would be put on administrative leave. The plaintiff then submitted a request for retirement. During her interactive processes with the district , the plaintiff sued the district, asserting claims under FEHA for disability discrimination, failure to provide reasonable accommodation and engage in the interactive process, associational discrimination (arising out of the plaintiff's claims that she had a disabled mother she wished to protect from COVID), retaliation, and Labor Code violations. The trial court granted the district summary judgment based on Government Code section 855.4 immunity, and alternatively because the plaintiff could not establish the elements of her causes of action.
The appellate court agreed that Government Code section 855.4 barred the plaintiff's claims to the extent that they were based on the district's decisions to allow employees to work from home and subsequently to require their return to in-office work, and the district's decisions concerning vaccine requirements. Section 855.4, subdivision (a) immunizes any decision relating to the control of the communication of disease that is the result of the discretion vested in the public entity, whether or not the discretion was abused. The plaintiff's briefing contained no reasoned argument explaining why her claims fall outside of this immunity. Alternatively, the court concluded that the plaintiff's discrimination claims failed because she failed to present evidence of a qualifying disability; that the interactive process and reasonable accommodation claims failed on that ground, and on the ground that the district engaged in an extensive interactive process and offered the plaintiff significant accommodations; that the plaintiff was not forced to resign; that the fact the district did not offer the plaintiff the specific accommodation she requested did not raise a triable issue as to retaliation; and that she had forfeited her claims of Labor Code violations by failing to explain how the trial court erred in granting summary adjudication of them.
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