Cooper

Plaintiff Gary Cooper appeals from a summary judgment in his employment termination action against respondents S.E. Rykoff & Co., Rykoff-Sexton, Inc., and Sam Wiley. We reverse.

Plaintiff s job was to repair commercial dishwashing machinery. After he was fired, he claimed breach of an implied agreement not to fire him without cause; breach of the implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing; and age discrimination. The issue presented is whether, as a matter of law, plaintiff’s claims are barred by material omissions in his employment application. The employer discovered these omissions during the litigation.

I.

The employer’s motion for summary judgment had a single basis: that plaintiff could not complain his firing was unlawful, because he had, in his application for employment nearly 10 years earlier, made material omissions.

Defendants’ position was stated clearly in their moving papers in the trial court: “It does not matter whether an employee can establish that his or her employer breached its contract with the employee or unlawfully discriminated against the employee (which defendants vehemently deny in this case). Even if an employee can prove such…