Mission Viejo

Companies are required to abide by numerous laws and regulations. Unfortunately, they sometimes fail to seek necessary legal counsel to address matters such as discrimination, harassment, retaliation, whistleblowing, or wage and hour. Or they may hire a firm but fail to follow the law anyway. Call knowledgeable Mission Viejo employment lawyers if you believe you may need to bring a lawsuit against your employer. We use insights and experience gleaned over two decades to fight for our clients’ interests.

It can be difficult to know whether you’ve been discriminated against on the job. Discrimination is not simply adverse action taken against you. Rather, it occurs when the adverse employment action is taken against you because you have a trait protected by federal, state or local law. In most cases, the California Fair Employment and Housing Act (FEHA) provides greater protection than federal or local laws. FEHA applies to all business practices including job applications; screenings; interviews; hiring; transferences; promotions; terminations; working conditions; and participation in training or apprenticeship programs, employee organizations or unions. It covers you when your employer has at least five employees and protects many different traits, from race and ancestry to mental disability. For example, if your employer demotes you after you ask for a reasonable accommodation for your fibromyalgia, you may have grounds for a disability discrimination lawsuit. Similarly, if you are harassed by coworkers for being trans, and your boss doesn’t address this harassment or tells you to simply deal with it, you may have a gender identity discrimination claim.

Whether a company has committed multiple violations of safety codes or perpetrated a fraud against the government, employees are often in the best position to know whether the company they work for has violated the law. California whistleblower protection laws prevent your employer from retaliating against you for reporting your employer’s legal violations to authorities. Retaliatory acts can include wrongful termination, failure to promote, demotion, unfair write-ups, and refusing to allow you to go through training you need to do your job. These laws prohibit retaliation even if you were wrong about the legal violation, so long as you reasonably believed that it was a legal violation. So, for instance, the healthcare practice you work for should not retaliate against you for reporting its Medicare fraud. Likewise, a construction company you work for is not permitted to retaliate against you for reporting safety violations to Cal/OSHA.

Wage and hour lawsuits can concern minimum wage, overtime, meal and rest breaks, equipment, and more. Unfortunately, wage theft is common, but you may be able to sue for damages to collect unpaid amounts of overtime or minimum wage, as well as interest and reasonable attorneys’ fees. When an employer commits wage theft with intention, you may be able to recover liquidated damages. Often, the potential amount of recovery is too small to warrant bringing an individual lawsuit. Wage and hour lawsuits can be litigated as a class action, if you are willing to join with your coworkers who are similarly situated with claims against your employer. If we represent you in a wage and hour class action, one of our early steps would be to file a motion for certification. As part of this motion, we would need to establish that the class claims fulfill class certification requirements of adequacy, numerosity, commonality, and typicality.

Companies usually have more significant resources than their employees do, and they may retain a knowledgeable legal team. Our seasoned Mission Viejo employment attorneys may be able to help if you are facing workplace discrimination, harassment, wage and hour violations or whistleblower retaliation. Our founder, Vincent Calderone, has over 20 years of experience representing workers in litigation and can use that experience to fight for you and your rights. Please contact us online or call us at (424) 348-8290.