Effective Representation In Employment and Wrongful Termination Cases for Workers and Businesses
Although there are some benefits to complaining about discrimination, harassment, retaliation, safety violations, etc., anonymously, whether internally or by contacting an outside governmental agency, consider the significant disadvantage of complaining without using your name: even if the employer later finds out somehow that you were the one who complaint, they can take action against you, Read More …
California Education Code Sections 44113(a) and 44114(c) are part of the Reporting by School Employees of Improper Governmental Activities Act. It prohibits “an employee” from using his or her official position to retaliate against “any person” to deter that person from making a disclosure protected by the Act. A “person” includes any individual. An employee Read More …
One kind of reasonable accommodation that an employee who has qualifying disability may be entitled to under ADA or FEHA is reassignment to a vacant position. This typically happens where an employee suffers a serious injury that prevents him or her from performing the physically demanding parts of his existing job, but where an employee Read More …
In 2011, the US Supreme Court held in Kasten v Saint-Gobain Performance Plastics Corporation (2011) that even oral complaints by employees about not being properly compensated constitute a protected activity within the meaning of anti-retaliation laws. In that case, the plaintiff brought a retaliation lawsuit against his employer under section 213(a)3 of the Fair Labor Standards Read More …
A qualifying disabled worker has the following basic workplace rights under ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act) and FEHA (California Fair Employment and Housing Act): 1. The right to not be discriminated because of disability. An employer cannot treat you differently in terms of conditions and privileges of your employment (including wages and compensation) because of your Read More …
The recent Ninth Circuit case Nigro v Sears, Roebuck & Co. (2015), is extremely helpful in discrimination cases where an employee doesn’t have much proof of discrimination beyond his own testimony about the statements or actions taken against him that are discriminatory. In Nigro, a disability discrimination case, the claimant submitted a declaration stating that Read More …
Sometimes, an employee who experiences harassment at work wants to report it to HR or to his higher management without having it investigated. An employee might even want to insist on keeping his issue with the alleged harasser between him/her and the manager to whom it was reported. It’s important, however, that you are aware Read More …
PERB Decision No. 2409 / SEIU Local 1021 v Sonoma County Superior Court is an important decision holding that a public employee is entitled to have his union representative present at at the ADA / FEHA interactive process concerning accommodating his disability. In that case, the employer denied an employee’s request for union representative to Read More …
The California Supreme Court recently held in Mendiola v CPS Security Solutions (2015) that certain security guards are entitled to on call pay for on-call hours including their sleep time. In that case, the claimants were security guards who worked at constructions sites. The resided in a trailer provided by their employer. On weekdays, each Read More …
We periodically receive a very similar call or e-ail from the Sacramento Kaiser former employees (mostly nurses, and LVN’s). They get injured, file a workers comp claim or go on medical leave / disability leave and then shortly after returning they are fired for some petty or even untrue reason based on “violation of principles Read More …