California Labor Code 970 Violations: Remedies and Section 971

A violation of California Labor Code 970 happens when someone knowingly makes false statements about a job to convince you to move for work. The lie has to touch one of four things the statute lists: what the job is, how long it lasts or what it pays, the housing or sanitary conditions tied to it, or whether there’s an active strike or lockout at the workplace. If you relocated because of that lie, Section 972 lets you sue for double your actual damages, and Section 971 makes the conduct a misdemeanor.

What Counts as a Violation

The statute reaches any person who uses false representations to persuade someone to move from one place to another for a job. That includes moves within California, moves into California from another state, and moves out of California. The false statement can be spoken, written, or published in a printed advertisement, and it must relate to one of the categories the Legislature spelled out.¹

The kind, character, or existence of the work. Recruiting you for a senior engineering role that doesn’t actually exist falls here.
The length of time the work will last or the compensation you’ll receive. Promising a two-year contract when the plan is a three-month project qualifies.
The sanitary or housing conditions connected to the job. This matters most where employers provide worker housing, such as agriculture or remote construction.
Whether there’s a strike, lockout, or other labor dispute at the workplace. Bringing someone in without disclosing an ongoing picket line is exactly the conduct the provision targets.

The law reaches “any person,” not only the employing company. A staffing recruiter, a corporate officer, or a hiring manager who personally makes false promises can be individually liable. A verbal promise during a phone interview carries the same legal weight as a fraudulent job listing, though proving what was said out loud is harder without witnesses or a paper trail.

Relocation is the hinge. Section 970 protects people who were persuaded to move. If you took a job based on false promises but stayed put, this statute likely doesn’t fit your situation, even if other fraud theories might.²

What You Have to Prove

Section 970 doesn’t punish honest mistakes or promises that later fell through. The statement has to be knowingly false, meaning the speaker knew it was untrue when they said it. California courts treat the statute as rooted in the tort of deceit, which requires scienter.²

A California appellate court set out the seven elements a worker has to establish:

The defendant made representations about the job’s character, duration, or another covered category.
The representations were untrue.
The defendant knew they were false when made.
The defendant intended the worker to rely on them.
The worker reasonably relied and changed residence to take the job.
The worker was harmed.
Reliance on the false statements was a substantial factor in causing that harm.

Promises about the future have their own wrinkle. Statements like “this role is permanent” or “we plan to keep this office open for at least five years” violate the statute only if the person making the promise didn’t actually intend to follow through when they said it. A company that meant it and later ran into layoffs didn’t knowingly lie. A company that told you the position was permanent while already planning to eliminate it in six months did.

What You Can Recover

Section 972 lets an injured worker sue for double the actual damages caused by the misrepresentation. Not single damages, not damages capped at a set figure. Double whatever your losses actually were.³

Recoverable losses typically include:

Relocation costs, such as moving expenses, broken leases, lost security deposits, and travel for the move itself.
Lost wages, calculated as the difference between what you were earning at your previous job and what you actually received in the new one (or nothing, if the promised job evaporated).
Housing costs for the residence you secured because of the new position.
Incidental losses that flow from the move, including a spouse’s lost income, children’s school transfer expenses, and penalties for breaking financial commitments.

The doubling adds up fast. A worker who spent $15,000 relocating and lost $30,000 in wages from leaving their old job has $45,000 in actual damages, which becomes $90,000 under Section 972.

You do not need a criminal conviction before filing the civil lawsuit. Section 972 lets the civil action proceed on its own.³

Criminal Exposure Under Section 971

A Section 970 violation is a misdemeanor. Penalties run from a fine of $50 to $1,000, up to six months in jail, or both.⁴ District attorneys rarely pursue these cases unless a pattern of fraud is egregious or affects many workers, so most enforcement happens on the civil side.

How Long You Have to Sue

Because Section 970 claims are grounded in fraud, the limitations period is three years under California’s Code of Civil Procedure. The clock doesn’t start when the lie was told or when you moved. It starts when you discover, or reasonably should have discovered, the facts showing you were deceived.⁵

The discovery rule matters because the fraud often isn’t obvious on day one. You might start the job and only gradually realize the role, the pay structure, or the working conditions bear no resemblance to what you were promised. The three-year window opens once you have enough information to know something was wrong, not when you can prove every element of the case. Don’t sit on a claim once you suspect deception. Courts have little patience for plaintiffs who recognized the fraud early and waited years to act.

Building Your Case

The strength of a 970 claim almost always turns on documentation. Save every email, text, offer letter, job posting, and written communication from the recruitment process. If promises came up verbally in interviews, write them down the same day with names, dates, and as close to the exact wording as you can remember. Saved voicemails and screen recordings are valuable when they exist.

Your offer letter or employment contract matters but doesn’t wipe out prior fraud. Even when the written agreement omits the promises that convinced you to relocate, those earlier misrepresentations can still support a Section 970 claim, because fraud is an exception to the general rule against using outside evidence to contradict a written contract.

When several workers were recruited through the same false promises, a class action may be viable. That depends on whether the misrepresentations were uniform enough across the group to justify collective treatment, which is a fact-intensive question for an employment fraud attorney to evaluate. Civil suits under Section 972 are typically filed in California Superior Court, and because no criminal case is required first, you can move as soon as you have evidence of the deception.

1
California Legislative Information. California Code Labor Code 970 – Solicitation of Employees by Misrepresentation
2
Justia. White v Smule Inc – 2022 California Court of Appeal
3
California Legislative Information. California Code Labor Code 972 – Solicitation of Employees by Misrepresentation
4
California Legislative Information. California Code Labor Code 971 – Solicitation of Employees by Misrepresentation
5
California Legislative Information. California Code of Civil Procedure CCP 338