## Facts

- Julie Loretta Glass Fermino worked as a salesclerk in a department store jewelry department.
- A personnel manager summoned her to a windowless room and interrogated her about an alleged theft involving proceeds from a small sale.
- The personnel manager was joined by the loss-prevention manager and two security agents.
- A security agent asserted that a customer and an employee were waiting nearby as witnesses and demanded a confession.
- The agent described two paths: the “Fedco way” (points assessed for each denial) and the “system way” (turning her over to police once enough points accrued).
- Each time Fermino denied guilt, she was assessed a point; the loss-prevention manager used profanities and demanded a confession.
- Fermino requested to leave and to call her mother; both requests were denied.
- She alleged she was physically compelled to remain in the room for more than an hour, including being blocked when she moved toward the door.
- After she became hysterical and cried, the interrogators left and later returned, stated there were no such witnesses, said they believed her, and allowed her to leave.
- Fermino alleged resulting physical injury and emotional distress.
- The case reached the Supreme Court on demurrer, so the allegations were treated as true.

## Issues

1. Whether the California Workers’ Compensation Act’s exclusive remedy provisions bar an employee’s civil action against her employer for false imprisonment occurring during an employer-led investigation.

## Decision

- The California Supreme Court reversed the Court of Appeal.
- The Court held the workers’ compensation exclusivity provisions did not bar Fermino’s false-imprisonment claim.
- The Court concluded that an employer who falsely imprisons an employee acts outside the employer’s proper role and beyond the “compensation bargain.”
- The matter was remanded to permit the civil action for false imprisonment to proceed.

## Legal Principles

- Workers’ compensation exclusivity applies only to injuries within the “compensation bargain,” under which the employer assumes no-fault liability for industrial injuries in exchange for limits on civil liability.
- Employer conduct that steps outside the employer’s proper role in the employment relationship is not within the compensation bargain and is not shielded by exclusivity.
- False imprisonment is an intentional, dignitary tort involving intentional, nonconsensual confinement without lawful privilege for an appreciable time.
- Alleged employer conduct resembling criminal or quasi-criminal restraint is not treated as a normal risk of employment for exclusivity purposes, even if it arises in a workplace setting.

## Conclusion

The court held that an employer’s false imprisonment of an employee during an internal investigation is outside the workers’ compensation compensation bargain, allowing the employee to pursue a civil tort action notwithstanding the Act’s exclusive remedy provisions.


Fermino v. Fedco, Inc., 7 Cal. 4th 701, 872 P.2d 559 (Cal. 1994)