A violation of California Labor Code 970 occurs when someone uses knowingly false promises about a job to persuade a worker to relocate, whether the move is within California, into the state, or out of it. Workers deceived this way can sue for double their actual damages under Section 972, and the person who made the false promises can also face misdemeanor charges under Section 971. The civil remedy is where almost all enforcement happens.
What Counts as a Violation
Section 970 bars any person, including recruiters, hiring managers, and corporate officers acting for a company, from using false representations to convince someone to move from one place to another to take a job. The lie has to touch one of four areas the statute lists.1California Legislative Information. California Code Labor Code 970 – Solicitation of Employees by Misrepresentation
- The kind, character, or existence of the work. Recruiting you for a senior role that doesn’t actually exist falls here.
- How long the work will last or what it pays. Promising a two-year contract while planning to use you for three months qualifies.
- The sanitary or housing conditions tied to the job. This comes up most in agriculture and remote work where the employer provides housing.
- The existence of a strike, lockout, or other labor dispute at the workplace. Hiding a picket line from a recruit is exactly what the statute targets.
The statute reaches “any person,” which means an individual recruiter or manager who personally made the false statements can be sued alongside the company. Spoken promises, written offers, and printed advertisements are all covered equally under the law, though a verbal promise is harder to prove without a witness or paper trail.
The “Knowingly False” Requirement
Honest mistakes and broken promises don’t violate Section 970. The person making the statement had to know it was false when they said it. California courts treat these claims as a form of deceit, so the speaker’s awareness of the falsehood (scienter) is required.2Justia. White v Smule Inc – 2022 California Court of Appeal
A California appellate court has set out seven elements a worker has to prove:
- The defendant made representations about the job’s character, duration, pay, conditions, or labor-dispute status.
- Those representations were not true.
- The defendant knew they were false when made.
- The defendant intended the worker to rely on them.
- The worker reasonably relied on them and changed residence to take the job.
- The worker was harmed.
- Reliance on the false representations was a substantial factor in causing that harm.
Relocation is a hard requirement. Section 970 protects people who were persuaded to move. If you took a job based on lies but didn’t change residence, this specific statute doesn’t fit your situation, though other fraud theories might.2Justia. White v Smule Inc – 2022 California Court of Appeal
Promises about the future deserve a closer look. A statement like “this position is permanent” is a knowingly false representation only if the person saying it had no actual intention to keep you on at the time. A company that genuinely planned to retain you but later laid you off during real business trouble didn’t violate Section 970. A company that told you the role was permanent while already planning to eliminate it in six months did.
Civil Damages: Double Your Actual Losses
The strongest tool in this part of the Labor Code is Section 972. A worker injured by a Section 970 violation can recover double the actual damages the misrepresentation caused.3California Legislative Information. California Code Labor Code 972 – Solicitation of Employees by Misrepresentation
Actual damages typically include:
- Relocation costs, including moving expenses, lost security deposits, broken-lease fees, 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 earned after the move (or nothing, if the promised job disappeared).
- Housing costs you took on because of the new position, such as rent or mortgage payments.
- Incidental losses that flow from the move, including a spouse’s lost employment, children’s school transfer costs, and penalties on financial commitments you had to break.
Each of those categories is doubled under Section 972, which makes the exposure for a bad-faith recruiter significant. You do not have to secure a criminal conviction before filing. The statute expressly allows the civil action to proceed on its own.3California Legislative Information. California Code Labor Code 972 – Solicitation of Employees by Misrepresentation
Criminal Penalty Under Section 971
A Section 970 violation is a misdemeanor. The penalties are a fine between $50 and $1,000, up to six months in jail, or both.4California Legislative Information. California Code Labor Code 971 – Solicitation of Employees by Misrepresentation Criminal prosecution is uncommon in practice; district attorneys rarely bring these cases absent a widespread pattern. The civil claim is where almost every deceived worker gets a remedy.
How Long You Have to Sue
Because the claim is grounded in fraud, the limitations period is three years under California Code of Civil Procedure Section 338. The clock starts when you discover, or reasonably should have discovered, the facts showing you were deceived, not when the false promise was made or when you moved.5California Legislative Information. California Code of Civil Procedure CCP 338
The discovery rule matters because the fraud often isn’t visible on day one. You might start the job and only slowly 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 recognize something was wrong. Courts don’t look kindly on plaintiffs who clearly saw the deception early and waited years anyway.
What to Do If You Were Deceived
The strength of a Section 970 claim rests on documentation. Save every email, text, offer letter, job posting, and written exchange from the recruitment process. If important promises were made verbally during interviews or phone calls, write them down the same day with names, dates, and what was said. Preserve voicemails. If witnesses were present during a conversation, note who they were.
A written employment contract doesn’t wipe out prior fraud. Even when the contract leaves out the promises that persuaded you to relocate, those earlier misrepresentations can still support a Section 970 claim, because fraud is a recognized exception to the rule that bars evidence of agreements outside a written contract.
If several people were recruited with the same false promises, a class action may be possible. Whether one is viable turns on whether the misrepresentations were uniform enough across the group, which is a question for a plaintiff’s attorney who handles employment fraud.
Civil claims under Section 972 are filed in California Superior Court. Because no criminal conviction is required first, you can file as soon as you have evidence. With a three-year limit running from discovery, the sooner you preserve records and talk to an attorney, the stronger your position.