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Villasenor v. Schneiter (2026) --- Cal.Rptr.3d ----, 2026 WL 3205537

California Court of Appeal, Second District, Division One · (2026) --- Cal.Rptr.3d ----, 2026 WL 3205537 · B337209, filed October 26, 2026 · Published opinion (PDF)

Summary for general education only—not legal advice. This is not a Workplace Rights Advocacy case result. See Case Results for the firm’s own verdicts and settlements.

Villasenor v. Schneiter (2026) --- Cal.Rptr.3d ----, 2026 WL 3205537, is a published California Court of Appeal decision about alter ego liability in a FEHA case. Ana Villasenor worked as a restaurant hostess from December 2015 to April 2016 for SR Long Beach FD, Inc. and SR Restaurant Holdings Group, Inc. She alleged that her supervisor sexually harassed her and retaliated against her for rejecting his advances, and that she was constructively discharged. She sued the two companies, and the owner Kurt Schneiter as their alleged alter ego, for gender discrimination, sexual harassment, retaliation, and failure to prevent those violations. She dismissed the supervisor after he received a bankruptcy discharge. A jury found the two companies liable and awarded $345,061.17 in compensatory damages and $100,000 in punitive damages. The court later added $949,672.50 in attorney’s fees and $103,241.65 in costs against the companies. In a separate bench trial, the Los Angeles Superior Court refused to hold Schneiter personally liable. The Court of Appeal affirmed.

Schneiter is the sole member of MMart 1, LLC. That company owns SR Holdings, which owns SR Long Beach. Villasenor did not argue on appeal that the evidence was strong enough to pierce the corporate veil. She argued that FEHA itself changes the usual rule. Under ordinary California law, a corporation or LLC is presumed to be separate from its owner. The worker must prove two things: a unity of interest and ownership so strong that the company and the owner are not really separate, and an inequitable result if the company alone is left responsible. Courts treat alter ego as an extreme remedy. Villasenor asked the court to replace that presumption with one favoring owner liability in every FEHA case, pointing to FEHA’s purpose of providing effective remedies (Government Code § 12920), its liberal-construction clause (§ 12993), and the one-way attorney-fee rule in § 12965. The court rejected that reading. FEHA never mentions alter ego. Its remedial purpose still works with the ordinary rule: the worker collects from the company when the company can pay, and can still reach an owner after proving the two alter-ego elements. The fee statute protects workers from paying the employer’s fees when they lose. It does not change who must pay when they win. Corporations Code § 17703.04 leaves LLC members subject to the same common-law alter-ego rules.

In plain English: the jury verdict, punitive damages, and fee and cost awards stand against the restaurant companies. On an alter-ego theory, they become the owner’s personal debt only if the worker proves that theory. A different statute already makes an employee who personally harasses someone liable for that harassment. Government Code § 12940(j)(3). Alter ego is the separate showing used to collect the company’s judgment from an owner. It still requires evidence, such as commingling, undercapitalization, or using the company to avoid a debt, plus unfairness if the company is treated as separate. The trial court was not persuaded the companies’ judgment would necessarily go unpaid. At trial, before fees and costs were added, Schneiter estimated the companies had about $720,000 in liquid assets against roughly $450,000 in damages. Workers who may need to collect from an owner should identify every employing entity and preserve facts about how the owner and the company share money, control, and assets. Related practice pages: sexual harassment, failure to prevent harassment, retaliation, and FEHA remedies.

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