Blythe v. Cohn
Plaintiff Stephanie Blythe was terminated from her civil service employment with the County of Riverside (the County) in May 2001, but an arbitrator determined she had been unlawfully terminated and later ordered her reinstated. Following a series of writ proceedings, the County reinstated Blythe in February 2007. Blythe was unemployed from and after her May 2001 termination and never returned to work for the County. She retired from the County in March 2007, after using accrued vacation time and sick leave. In its statement of decision, the trial court indicated that Blythes lack of even minimal documentation of her job efforts [was] disconcerting, and that, if adequately motivated, Blythe could have found any job in her field. The court did not, however, expressly determine whether Blythe, given the comparable employment opportunities that were available to her, undertook or failed to undertake reasonable efforts to obtain such employment. Accordingly, the judgment must be reversed and the matter remanded to the trial court with directions to determine whether the County met its burden of showing that Blythe failed to undertake reasonable efforts to obtain comparable employment.
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