NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN THE OFFICIAL REPORTS

GRIMES, J.

Plaintiff Esther Carrera had been continuously employed by defendant Downey Unified School District (district) as a bilingual clerk for five years when she filed this discrimination lawsuit. Apparently, plaintiff remains employed at the district. She has suffered from increasingly more debilitating disabilities. Out of respect for her privacy, and because a recitation of her medical condition is unnecessary to our analysis, we will not describe her medical condition further. In 2007, plaintiff asked the district to accommodate her disability by maintaining a workplace temperature of 70 degrees, but the district did not make that accommodation, and after filing the prerequisite complaints, plaintiff filed this lawsuit.

At trial, the jury returned a verdict for the district. On appeal, plaintiff asserts instructional error based on the trial court's refusal to instruct the jury on retaliation in violation of the Fair Employment and Housing Act, Government Code section 12900 et seq. (FEHA). Plaintiff did not allege a cause of action for retaliation. The operative first amended complaint alleged only one cause of action for discrimination on the basis of physical disability and refusal to accommodate. (The trial court granted summary adjudication of the second cause of action for an injunction.) Plaintiff argues it was plain that retaliation was one of her legal theories, because the complaint alleges retaliation in several paragraphs. She argues that, if the complaint was inadequately pleaded, the trial court should have permitted her to amend the complaint to conform to the proof at trial and instructed the jury on retaliation. Plaintiff has not demonstrated the trial court abused its discretion, and we affirm the judgment.

The first amended complaint does not appear to allege a cause of action for retaliation. Plaintiff's legal theory appeared to be discrimination on the basis of physical disability and failure to accommodate. Her only cause of action is designated as such, and the few facts alleged in the operative complaint state only that plaintiff is heat-intolerant because of her disabilities; she asked that the workplace temperature be maintained at 70 degrees; the district refused the accommodation and then harassed and retaliated against her for requesting it. No facts are alleged describing what defendant did to harass her or retaliate against her, except the allegation that a district representative accused her of abandoning her job and pressured her to take off sick days without pay or resign. There is no allegation that plaintiff actually did take off sick days without compensation to which she was due or that plaintiff ever submitted her resignation. In short, it was certainly not clear from the allegations of the complaint that one of plaintiff's legal theories was retaliation.

"The basic rule [in] civil law . . . is that amendments to conform to proof are favored, and should not be denied unless the pleading as drafted prior to the proposed amendment would have misled the adversarial party to its prejudice." (In re Jessica C. (2001) 93 Cal.App.4th 1027, 1042, citing South Bay Building Enterprises, Inc. v. Riviera Lend-Lease, Inc. (1999) 72 Cal.App.4th 1111, 1124.) "The allowance or disallowance of amendments to pleadings during the course of the trial rests largely in the discretion of the trial court [citation] and its ruling will not be disturbed unless it clearly appears that such discretion has been abused. [Citation.] The trial court has a wide discretion in such matters where the purpose of the amendment is to raise new issues after the pleadings have been settled and the trial has commenced. [Citation.]" (Feykert v. Hardy (1963) 213 Cal.App.2d 67, 75; see also Hansen v. Matich Corporation (1965) 234 Cal.App.2d 129, 131-132, and cases cited therein.)

Giving plaintiff the benefit of the doubt and assuming, without deciding, that her inartfully pleaded complaint put defendant on notice that she was alleging retaliation in violation of FEHA, plaintiff has not demonstrated the trial court abused its discretion because plaintiff has not shown there was proof of retaliation. The trial court could only permit an amendment that conformed to the proof at trial. (Hartman v. Shell Oil Co. (1977) 68 Cal.App.3d 240, 251-252 [trial court correctly denied motion to amend pleading at trial where there were no facts before the jury to authorize the proposed amendment]; Hooper v. Romero (1968) 262 Cal.App.2d 574, 580 [amendment should be liberally granted, even during trial, where parties actually litigated the facts to be amended].) We are in no position to determine whether the trial court abused its discretion in denying the motion to amend to include a cause of action for retaliation, because plaintiff has not included any record citations to the evidence to show there was evidence of retaliation.

The only citations to the reporter's transcript of trial in plaintiff's briefs refer to exchanges between the court and counsel, outside the presence of the jury, concerning whether the court would give instructions on retaliation. The court's comments indicate the court believed plaintiff failed to offer evidence of retaliation. In the cited portions of the reporter's transcript, plaintiff did not argue to the trial court what evidence of retaliation the jury heard that would warrant instructions on retaliation. In her briefs on appeal, she argues her retaliation claim was supported by evidence that her performance evaluations declined after she complained about the refusal to accommodate her, reducing her opportunity for promotions and pay increases. To support this argument on appeal, plaintiff cited several random pages in the clerk's transcript in her opening brief. (None of the cited portions of the clerk's transcript concerns retaliation; none refers to any trial exhibit.) Plaintiff provided no citation at all in her reply brief to support the argument that her performance evaluations declined. Respondent argues "the record does not establish that plaintiff's counsel, at trial, raised the issue of less-positive performance reviews to the trial court." Respondent also argues that a decline in performance evaluations does not constitute adverse employment action sufficient to establish retaliation.

Without any citations to the record evidence, we cannot resolve this dispute because we do not know what, if any, evidence of retaliation was, or was not, admitted at trial. (Yanowitz v. L'Oreal USA, Inc. (2005) 36 Cal.4th 1028, 1052 ["Retaliation claims are inherently fact-specific, and the impact of an employer's action in a particular case must be evaluated in context. Accordingly, although an adverse employment action must materially affect the terms, conditions, or privileges of employment to be actionable, the determination of whether a particular action or course of conduct rises to the level of actionable conduct should take into account the unique circumstances of the affected employee as well as the workplace context of the claim."].) The trial court was not required to instruct on any theory of the case that was not supported by substantial evidence. (John Y. v. Chaparral Treatment Center, Inc. (2002) 101 Cal.App.4th 565, 574.)

An appellant must provide specific page citations to the record to support his or her arguments on appeal. If a party fails to support an argument with the necessary citations to the record, that portion of the brief may be stricken and the argument deemed to have been waived. (Cal. Rules of Court, rule 8.204(a)(1)(C); Duarte v. Chino Community Hospital (1999) 72 Cal.App.4th 849, 856.) "`The reviewing court is not required to make an independent, unassisted study of the record in search of error or grounds to support the judgment. . . . [E]very brief should contain a legal argument with citation of authorities on the points made. If none is furnished on a particular point, the court may treat it as waived, and pass it without consideration.' [Citation.]" (McComber v. Wells (1999) 72 Cal.App.4th 512, 522; see also Carpenter v. Vaughn (M.D.Pa. 1994) 888 F.Supp. 635, 648 ["`"Judges are not like pigs, hunting for truffles buried in briefs." . . . A litigant who fails to press a point by supporting it with pertinent authority or by showing why it is a good point despite a lack of authority . . . forfeits the point.' [Citation.] . . . It is the litigants' role to present their case to the court, not vice versa."].)

DISPOSITION

The judgment is affirmed. Respondent is to recover its costs on appeal.

RUBIN, Acting P. J. and FLIER, J., concurs.