Orange County Employment Lawyers Blog

“Can They Fire Me on Parental Leave?” L.A. Employment Lawyer Answers

February 23, 2023 | by Nassiri Law

As an L.A. employment lawyer, we’ve fielded a fair number of questions about the legality of lay-offs or termination of an employee who is on maternity leave or parental leave.

The answer isn’t always cut-and-dried, depending a fair bit on the specific circumstances of the case.

Of course, losing a job in general is never an easy prospect. But firing or laying off someone who is on parental leave is arguably all kinds of wrong from a moral perspective – especially because employees in this situation truly need both money and health care during this time. One might even consider it “emotional robbery.” Those first few days, weeks, and months bonding with a new baby are priceless. If the parent is suddenly overwhelmed with stress over finances and healthcare, they’re emotional and physical energy will be spent elsewhere – and that’s time they’ll never get back. It can also have serious health consequences, especially for employees who have just given birth.

All this makes it very risky for a company’s reputation and brand to engage in such practices. And yet, some still do. Whether that’s the basis for a successful California employment lawsuit will hinge on a few different factors.

Rights of Employees on Parental Leave

There are federal and state laws that protect the rights of employees on parental leave. California has some of the strongest state-level parental leave protections.

California (as well as a handful of other states) requires paid parental leave – up to 8 weeks of partial wage replacement to eligible workers. It can be used for new parents and/or within 1 year of a child’s birth or foster care placement or adoption. Pregnant mothers are also given up to 4 months of job-protected disability leave prior to parental leave once the child is born. The California Paid Family Leave law (available to workers at companies with 20+ employees) is not solely for new parents, but can also be used to care for a seriously ill close family member. Continue Reading ›

California Age Discrimination Laws Protect Workers 40+

February 20, 2023 | by Nassiri Law

In less than 10 years, more than a quarter of the population in California is going to be over the age of 60. Nationally by 2035, the number of people over the age of 65 will outnumber those under 18 – for the first time ever. As we speak, there are an estimated 10,000 people in America turning 65 every day. So perhaps it’s unsurprising that Los Angeles employment lawyers are getting more inquiries than ever about age discrimination at work and what constitutes a possible claim.

Age discrimination is unlawful under both California and U.S. laws – but it can be tough to prove, despite being increasingly common. It is very important if you’re considering pursuit of an age discrimination claim that you prioritize hiring an employment lawyer who knows what they’re doing – and has a proven track record of success in this particular area of law.

Why Do Employers Engage in Age Discrimination?

Older workers are defined as those 40 and older, and they may be vulnerable in landing and/or keeping a job – primarily on the basis of their age.

According to the AARP, an estimated 80 percent of older workers say they’ve experienced age discrimination at work.

Why would a workplace discriminate against older workers? Among the reasons sometimes cited (openly or not) for favoring younger workers:

They may be open to more flexible work schedules. They are less likely to have spouses, families, and other obligations that demand a reasonable work-life balance.
They tend to be more attractive. This of course is not a relevant factor for most positions, but the beauty bias is real and well-established.
They’re cheaper. Less experience means lower salaries, fewer benefits, less sick leave, less risk of injury, etc.
They’re better with technology. This is a myth – more experienced workers are just as efficient with the most up-to-date tech. But this misconception sometimes drives age discrimination in employment.

Many of these are rooted in preconceived notions and age-based stereotypes. Some of these reasons cited may be a solid basis for an age discrimination claim, depending on the particulars.

As noted by California’s Employment Development Department, some of the laws that protect older workers in this state include: Continue Reading ›

Los Angeles Sexual Harassment, Rape Lawsuit Filed by Former Bank Exec

February 7, 2023 | by Nassiri Law

A former banking executive has filed a Los Angeles sexual harassment and rape lawsuit against her previous employer, alleging failure to protect her from a hostile work environment perpetuated by a co-worker. Not only did she endure vulgar behavior and gender-based harassment, she alleges her boss raped her and then retaliated against her – and the company dragged its feet in responding.

As our Los Angeles sexual harassment lawyers recognize, this type of workplace misogyny, mistreatment, and victimization occurs in workplaces of all kinds and between individuals of all positions and paygrades.

The National Sexual Violence Resource Center notes that sexual assault, harassment, and abuse are widespread issues impacting victims across the spectrum of race, gender identity, sexual orientation, income, disability, or other factors. While 60 percent of women say they’ve experienced unwanted sexual attention, sexual coercion, crude conduct, or sexist comments at work, 85 percent of those say they never file file formal charges and 70 percent never even file internal complaints. Employees victimized by sexual harassment are very likely to suffer PTSD, depression, and anxiety as a result. They may also endure related physical problems, including sleep problems, gastric complications, weight loss/gain, headaches, etc.

Sexual harassment is against the law, and if you are targeted in your workplace, our experienced, compassionate legal team can help – protecting your civil rights, advising you on the best legal strategies, and advocating for the best possible outcome in your favor.

In this case, according to court filings in Doe v. Wells Fargo Bank Corp. et al., plaintiff was hired as a senior vice president at the firm’s Southern California branch in 2018. Almost immediately thereafter – and continuing/worsening until she says she was forced resign in 2021 – plaintiff said she endured sexual harassment.

Her allegations are as follows: Continue Reading ›

Federal Employment Discrimination Lawsuit May Require Proof of Disparate Treatment of “Similarly Situated” Co-Worker

February 3, 2023 | by Nassiri Law

When it comes to establishing discrimination and/or wrongful termination, it’s worth noting that some unique challenges can arise when trying to establish the adverse employment action was discriminatory. As our Los Angeles employment attorneys can explain, some legal arguments require plaintiffs to identify a “similarly situated” individual – someone with the same or similar job – who is outside the protected class, engaged in the same conduct, yet was treated more favorably than the plaintiff.

If the plaintiff is a manager, they may need to find evidence of other managers being given more favorable treatment. If they’re drivers, they may need to show evidence other drivers (not supervisors) were treated better. If they’re teachers, they may need to show other teachers (not principals or secretaries) being treated more favorably.

This was underscored in a recent federal employment lawsuit alleging racial discrimination and wrongful termination of a UPS supervisor.

Federal Racial Discrimination/Wrongful Termination Employment Lawsuit After Drug Test

After 20 years of employment, an on-road supervisor who is Black was fired after testing positive for cocaine in a random drug test. He filed an employment lawsuit alleging racial discrimination and wrongful termination, citing violations of both state and federal law. He indicated his direct supervisor told him that his superior had “racist tendencies” and had made racist comments about Black people to other employees.

The federal district trial court in New Jersey granted summary judgment in favor of the employer. The case, Langley v. UPS, then went to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. The appellate court also affirmed the ruling in favor of the employer. In its explanation, the court detailed the factual background: Continue Reading ›

Travel Nurses Across U.S. Allege Employment Agencies Aren’t Paying Up As Promised

January 20, 2023 | by Nassiri Law

Traveling nurses have long been relied upon to help fill gaps in healthcare demands. During the pandemic, traveling nurses were a life raft to hospitals who were swimming against the tide and trying to remain afloat. But now that the worst of the pandemic has subsided, we’re seeing a growing number of California labor law violations and contract breaches involving traveling nurse agencies and the hospitals that use them. Nurses say agencies have dangled carrots of huge sign-on bonuses, substantial hourly rates, and monthly living expense stipends – only to slash these payments mid-contract due to tapering demand.

Further complicating matters is the unique way these employment arrangements are structured: It’s the travel agency that’s technically the employer, but it’s the hospital that has control over the schedule, the assignments, the uniforms, the breaks, how the work must be done, etc. As our Los Angeles employment lawyers can explain, this level of control is the basis of some employment lawsuits by traveling nurses that seek to hold both the agency and the health care facility responsible.

Over the last year or so, we’ve seen a growing chorus of travel nurses alleging a “bait-and-switch” by the agencies that hire them. The agencies say they have no control over employment demands at hospitals, and have no choice but to cut hours if the need for nurses declines during a contract. Hospitals, citing their lack of a direct contract with nurses, say they shouldn’t be a part of any employment disputes.

Our Los Angeles employment lawyers have seen a few cases coming down the pipeline – in California, as well as other states, and so far, it seems that in disputes among these nurses, staffing agencies, and hospitals, rulings have leaned in favor of the nurses.

For example, last summer, the California Supreme Court ruled in an employment lawsuit of Grande v. Eisenhower Medical Center that a hospital and a nurse staffing agency had no privity between them. We wrote about this case several months ago on our California employment lawyer blog. Privity is when two or more parties in contract with each other are bound by that contract and obligated to each other in some way. A lack of privity in employment litigation means that two entities can be considered separate employers of the same worker. In the Grande case, the nurse settled her employment lawsuit against the staffing agency, but thanks to the state high court ruling, she was also free to pursue additional remedy directly against the hospital. Although her contract technically was with the staffing agency, the hospital maintained control over shift assignments and required nurses to use its own time and attendance system. The hospital argued it should be precluded from litigation because of its contract with the staffing agency. But the California Supreme Court ruled there was no privity because the staffing agency and the hospital had two different legal interests. Continue Reading ›

Filing Deadlines for California Wage Theft, Rest Break Violations, and Employee Misclassification

January 12, 2023 | by Nassiri Law

Workers who have been shorted wages, break time, or other benefits can pursue claims for damages in two ways: An administrative process through the California Labor Commissioner’s Office and/or with a civil lawsuit. With both avenues, there are time limits on how long workers have to file these claims.

The deadlines are called statutes of limitations, and they apply for just about every type of case and claim under the sun. For employment wage and hour or breach of contract claims, deadlines are typically somewhere between two and four years, depending on the type of claim. There may be a few narrow exceptions that allow for more time to file, but courts are generally inclined to stick to the hard stops.

If you have a strong suspicion that you’ve been cheated out of fair pay and other compensation, it’s important to discuss your legal options with an experienced Los Angeles employment lawyer.

What is a Wage and Hour Claim?

When our legal team talks about “wage and hour” claims or lawsuits, it’s terminology that’s sort of a catch-all for many different kinds of employer misdeeds or oversights that result in employees not being properly compensated for their time and labor. California wage and hour claims can refer to:

Not paying workers minimum wage. (This has been an especially outsized problem for industries/companies that pay workers by-the-piece or the “piece rate” rather than an hourly wage.)
Not properly and fully compensating workers for overtime.
Denying workers the meal and rest breaks to which they are entitled.
Failure to reimburse workers for business expenses (gas/mileage, office supplies, work tools/materials, etc.).
Not properly maintaining worker pay records.
Bouncing worker paychecks.
Failure to pay workers their last paycheck.
Unauthorized deductions, including skimming workers’ tips.
Requiring workers to engage in work-related tasks without pay. This includes being on-call (call back or standby), off-the-clock bag checks every shift, refusing to pay workers for “unproductive time” (time spent at work/under the control of the employer, though not actively engaged in production work), and encouraging employees to work off-the-clock.
Not providing hazard pay, when it’s provided as part of the employment agreement.

Most of these rights are limited to workers properly classified as “employees” as opposed to “independent contractors.” Knowing that employees have far more rights under the law than independent contractors, some employers intentionally misclassify employees as independent contractors. This allows them to avoid paying for things like minimum wage, sick leave, workers’ compensation, meal breaks, etc. Workers can successfully challenge a misclassification as an independent contractor in court by establishing the level of control the operation had over the worker’s day-to-day tasks, how closely related the worker’s contributions were to the employer’s core mission, and how the worker was paid.

Workers who are properly classified as independent contractors can still pursue wage theft claims, though they typically do so by alleging breach of contract or unfair competition rather than labor law violations.

California Employment Law Statute of Limitations

California Bereavement Leave and Expanded Paid Sick Leave Laws Now In Effect

January 5, 2023 | by Nassiri Law

Two new employment laws in California went into effect Jan. 1, 2023 – one expanding worker protections when a loved one dies, and another expanding existing sick leave laws when caring for a loved one outside of their immediate family circle.

As our Los Angeles employment lawyers can explain, California has some of the strongest worker rights protections in the country – and these two new statutes are good examples.

Let’s start with Bereavement Leave – or more specifically, Assembly Bill 1949. This is a measure amending the California’s Healthy Workplaces Healthy Families Act to allow workers to take paid bereavement leave, also known as funeral leave or grievance leave.

New California Bereavement Leave Law for Employees

A fair amount of employers in California already offer some type of bereavement leave to their workers as part of their benefits package. Most have a set number of workdays that employees can take off if a loved one dies. Some require that workers first exhaust all their vacation and/or sick days first before they can be permitted to take any additional days for bereavement. Additionally, there are a number of cities throughout the state that require employers operating in those jurisdictions to provide workers with bereavement leave. But these policies are a patchwork of rules, with broad variations on how many days off are permitted, how close in relation the worker must be to the decedent for the worker to claim benefits, how the time must be taken (consecutively, broken up, etc.), and how requests must be made. Smaller employers may not have a set bereavement policy, but rather make determinations on a case-by-case basis.

This new law requires private employers with five (5) or more employees to provide any eligible employees (having worked there at least 30 days) to at least 5 days of bereavement leave upon the death of a family member. Some companies already offer more than this, but any employer who offers fewer days than this will need to amend their policies.

“Family member” in this case can mean: Continue Reading ›

California Fast Food Worker Rights Law Halted in Restaurant-Union-State Facedown

January 3, 2023 | by Nassiri Law

A judge in Sacramento has halted a California employment law bolstering fast food worker protections that was slated to go into effect Jan. 1, 2023.

The judge’s decision, issued Dec. 30, 2023, was in response to a lawsuit filed by a large restaurant coalition and corporate trade groups seeking to overturn the law, Assembly Bill 257 (aka the FAST Act or Fast Food Recovery Act). The industry group, Save Local Restaurants (which includes half a dozen other large franchise, restaurant, and business associations), submitted a petition signed by 1 million+ California voters to take the issue back to the ballot in November 2024.

Precedent set decades ago with the right of referendum many presuming that the announcement of the petition itself would trigger the state to put a hold on implementing pending legislation as previously planned. However, as our Los Angeles employment lawyers can explain, the state Department of Industrial Regulations said it intended to proceed as planned with AB 257 – and would pause only if the petition signatures were verified and the referendum was approved, a process that typically takes several weeks. To qualify for referendum, 66 percent of the signatures would need to be verified. The process is still ongoing, but as of this writing, the verification rate is about 76 percent.

California Employment Retaliation: Know Your Rights as a Worker

January 3, 2023 | by Nassiri Law

California employment retaliation occurs when employers unlawfully punish workers for engaging in lawful activities, such as filing a complaint for sexual harassment, cooperating with an OSHA investigation, or filing a claim for workers’ compensation benefits. Oftentimes, employer retaliation involves the use of pretextual reasons to justify the adverse employment action. For example, the employer may indicate the adverse employment action is justified by an employee’s poor work performance, when in reality, the motivation was retaliation for “rocking the boat.”

Many studies have established that workers in low-paying industries are especially prone to wage and hour violations, unsafe working conditions, and unlawful discrimination. They are also more likely to be retaliated against if they speak out.

Because retaliation is rarely blatant, it can be difficult to prove. As Los Angeles employment lawyers, we recognize the obstacles that wronged workers face in proving their retaliation claims. We also have the skill, experience, and resources to help them establish the truth in a court of law.

Targeting Workplace Inequalities By Tackling California Employment Retaliation

A recent report prepared by the National Employment Law Project examined the widespread problem of California employment retaliation, noted some of the reasons unlawful employment retaliation persists despite laws and accountability through litigation:

Power imbalances between workers and their employers.
Financial instability among workers, particularly those in lower-wage jobs – especially those who are immigrants. Threats of being reported to immigration authorities or simply the risk of bearing a substantial financial burden for speaking out keeps workers silent.
California’s system of “at-will” employment that allows employers to fire workers for almost any reason (or no reason at all) – so long as it’s not discriminatory or fall under some other categorization that’s prohibited (such as retaliation). It creates an environment of fear that undercuts workers’ ability to speak up about unlawful treatment, inequality, or unsafe employment practices.

When California Employment Discrimination Involves Non-Minority Plaintiffs

December 28, 2022 | by Nassiri Law

When it comes to employment discrimination in California, we tend to presume that the complainants facing unfair treatment are those in the social minority group or otherwise at a systemic disadvantage. And they usually are: Black, Indigenous, and People of Color, women, religious minorities, members of the LGBTQ community, those with darker skin, those born outside of the United States, those who are pregnant, those with disabilities, etc. These are the individuals most commonly adversely impacted by personal biases and systemic inequalities that bleed into the workplace.

That said: State and federal anti-discrimination laws generally do not limit these protections solely to minority groups. For example, Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 states it’s an unlawful employment practice for employers to discriminate against employees on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. Nowhere does it mention that certain races or religions or genders are the only ones covered by the law.

In other words, as our Los Angeles employment lawyers can explain, it is entirely possible for a White, Christian, heterosexual, young male born in the U.S. to be a plaintiff in an employment discrimination lawsuit. The key question is going to be: Was the worker treated unfairly on the basis of any of those characteristics?