What are the legal implications of quitting your job? Can you collect unemployment? Severance? What if you have a case and you quit (vs letting them fire you), will you still be able to take action? I answer all of those questions in this video.
My office gets a lot of calls from people who quit and still want to take action. This video details the critical things that lawyers look at in this situation.
As with all things in life, making a complaint at work is a risk. If you complain to human resources the wrong way, you might get fired (it happens far more often than people think). That is why I took the time to make a video about the correct way to complain to HR.
This video will explain the five things you need to know before you complain about your issue at work. It also covers how HR will react to your complaint and what you should expect if they conduct an “investigation.”
If you found this to be helpful, please leave a comment below.
This is a very common question. At-will employment does not mean that the company can fire you for any reason they want. That is incorrect. In this video, employment attorney Branigan Robertson explains the at-will doctrine and how it actually works.
Our firm has been receiving a lot of calls recently from potential clients claiming their employer has discriminated against them based on their age. Thus, it may be a good idea to review age discrimination in the workplace. While this page provides an overview on age discrimination, our general discrimination page can be found here.
FEHA (the California Fair Employment and Housing Act) prohibits employers from discriminating against an employee for his or her age. FEHA’s age discrimination provisions apply to those employees who are forty years of age or older. Interestingly enough, federal courts have held that there cannot be any reverse discrimination claims by younger employees. Basically, this means that those employees under forty years old cannot sue for discrimination against them in favor of older employees. For example, if an employee who is twenty-eight years old is passed by for a promotion because he is too young and they end up promoting an employee who is older, the twenty-eight year old employee would most likely not have an age discrimination case. Although the example provided may seem unfair, FEHA’s age discrimination provisions will most likely not apply to any employees younger than forty.
An employee alleging age discrimination must prove that adverse action was taken against him or her due to his or her age. The employee can prove this by direct or circumstantial evidence. Direct evidence can be in the form of comments regarding the employee’s age. For example, a supervisor sends an e-mail to other co-workers that he is going to fire an employee because he or she is too old and should retire soon. That would be direct evidence.
However, direct evidence is usually pretty rare. Most of the time, evidence of age discrimination is circumstantial. The California courts have adopted an analysis test in which the initial burden is on the plaintiff to show that he or she was discriminated against due to his or her age. Thus, the employee must show the following. First, that he or she was at least forty years old at the time adverse action was taken against him or her. Second, that adverse action was in fact taken against the employee. Third, that the employee’s job performance was satisfactory. And fourth, that he or she was replaced by a significantly younger person.
Here is a common example of age discrimination by the employer involving circumstantial evidence. Employee is 60 years old, and has been at the company for many years. He has never received a write up or complaints about his performance, in fact he has always performed well. Randomly, the employee is terminated and given an arbitrary reason such as it is not working out anymore or the company is cutting back financially. The employee later finds out that he was replaced by a significantly younger person who is in his or her low thirties. Now from these facts, it is not guaranteed that he will win an age discrimination case, but the facts are very suspect and suggest there could be some age discrimination on part of the company.
If you are above the age of forty and your employer has taken adverse action against you, it may be worth calling an employment lawyers who handles age discrimination cases for a consultation and evaluation of your potential case.
Filed under Age
There are many types of prohibited employment discrimination in California. One common type is age discrimination. CA’s Fair Employment and Housing Act, or FEHA, protects employees who are at least 40 years old from discrimination in the workplace or during the hiring process. It is unlawful for an employer to discharge an employee because of the employee’s age if the employee is 40 years or older. And it is also unlawful for an employer to only search for younger applicants if the employer has a job opening. Age discrimination in the workplace is just one of the many areas of labor law in which California employment attorneys work to prevent.
In Nickel v. Staples, the plaintiff was employed as a facilities manager. The plaintiff was 64 years old at the time he was terminated. At the time he was terminated, a new company had just acquired the company he had been employed with for several years. Throughout his employment, the plaintiff received accolades and positive reviews for his performance. Despite this, the plaintiff believed he was terminated because his pay scale was higher than many of the employees of the acquiring company. His managers also stated that they needed to get rid of the older, higher paid employees. The plaintiff’s age also became a running joke at the office, and he was often referred to as an old goat. Lastly, the plaintiff was even approached by a co-worker who told him that she had been told by upper management to make up a false statement about the plaintiff’s conduct as a pretext to his termination.
The jury sided with the plaintiff. The jury awarded the plaintiff a total verdict of $26,107,328, most of which was punitive damages. This is an exceptional result that is rare in California jury verdicts. While the details here don’t seem to justify such a large verdict, the jury saw and evaluated all of the facts before coming to such a large amount.
Unfortunately, employers still take adverse action against its employees for discriminatory reasons. Sadly, this is far too common in California. But companies can be held accountable. If you believe you have been discriminated against in the workplace for any reason, call a California labor lawyer. There are many great lawyers up and down the State of California. If you have a good case, you will find a lawyer who will likely represent you on a contingency fee.
