Wrongful Termination

California law provides broad protections against wrongful termination. Employers generally may not terminate an employee because they engaged in protected activity—such as reporting unlawful conduct, requesting a reasonable accommodation, or taking protected leave—or because of a protected characteristic, including race, religion, sex, disability, age, national origin, or other legally protected classifications.

Wrongful termination claims often arise from retaliation, discrimination, disability, failure to accommodate, violations of protected leave laws, whistleblower retaliation, and other unlawful employment practices. Depending on the circumstances, recoverable damages may include lost wages (back pay), future lost earnings (front pay), emotional distress damages, attorneys' fees, and, in appropriate cases, punitive damages.

If you believe you were wrongfully terminated, you should consult an experienced employment attorney as soon as possible. California employment claims are subject to strict statutes of limitation, and delaying action may affect your legal rights.

Retaliation

California law prohibits employers from retaliating against employees for engaging in legally protected activity. Protected activity may include reporting discrimination, harassment, wage and hour violations, or other unlawful conduct; requesting a reasonable accommodation; taking protected medical or family leave; participating in a workplace investigation; or exercising other rights protected by law.

Retaliation can take many forms, including termination, demotion, disciplinary action, reduced hours, denial of promotions, unfavorable work assignments, or other adverse employment actions taken because an employee exercised a protected right. Employers may not punish employees for asserting their legal rights or for reporting unlawful conduct in good faith.

Many retaliation claims begin with thoughts like, "I was fired after reporting harassment," or "I was fired after complaining to HR." If this applies to you, Yousefzadeh Law, PC can help evaluate your rights during a complimentary case evaluation.

Workplace Discrimination

California law prohibits employers from discriminating against employees and applicants based on protected characteristics such as race, religion, disability, pregnancy, age, sex, and other characteristics protected by law. Unlawful discrimination may include refusing to hire, wrongful termination, demotion, unequal pay, denial of promotions, failure to provide reasonable accommodations, or other adverse employment actions motivated by a protected characteristic. Depending on the circumstances, employees may be entitled to recover lost wages, emotional distress damages, attorneys' fees, punitive damages, and other available remedies. If you believe you have been subjected to unlawful workplace discrimination, Yousefzadeh Law, PC can help evaluate your rights.

Hostile Work Environment

California law protects employees from unlawful workplace harassment that is so severe or pervasive that it creates a hostile, intimidating, or abusive work environment. A hostile work environment may be based on a protected characteristic such as race, religion, disability, pregnancy, age, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, or another characteristic protected by law.

Hostile work environment claims may involve offensive comments, slurs, unwanted physical conduct, repeated jokes, intimidation, or other harassing behavior by supervisors, coworkers, clients, customers, or other third parties. If you have been subjected to unlawful workplace harassment, Yousefzadeh Law, PC can help evaluate your rights and pursue the remedies available under California law.

Sexual Harassment

Every employee has the right to work in an environment free from sexual harassment. California law prohibits unwelcome sexual advances, requests for sexual favors, and other verbal, visual, or physical conduct of a sexual nature that creates a hostile, intimidating, or offensive work environment. Sexual harassment is not limited to conduct by supervisors; it may also be committed by coworkers, subordinates, or other individuals in the workplace.

Sexual harassment may take many forms, including inappropriate touching, unwanted sexual advances, repeated comments about a person's appearance, sexually explicit jokes or messages, requests for sexual favors, or retaliation for rejecting or reporting harassing conduct. Employers have a legal duty to take reasonable steps to prevent and promptly correct workplace harassment once they know, or should know, that it has occurred.

Depending on the circumstances, recoverable damages may include emotional distress damages, lost wages (back pay), future lost earnings (front pay), attorneys' fees, and, in appropriate cases, punitive damages. If you believe you have been subjected to sexual harassment in the workplace, you should consult an experienced employment attorney as soon as possible. California employment claims are subject to strict statutes of limitation, and delaying action may affect your legal rights.

Wage and Hour

California has some of the nation's strongest wage and hour laws, requiring employers to properly compensate employees for all hours worked and provide legally compliant meal and rest breaks. Unfortunately, wage theft remains a common problem, and employees are often denied wages they have rightfully earned.

Wage and hour claims may arise from unpaid overtime, unpaid minimum wages, missed meal or rest breaks, off-the-clock work, unreimbursed business expenses, employee misclassification, unlawful deductions, failure to timely pay final wages, inaccurate wage statements, and other violations of California's Labor Code. Even seemingly minor violations, such as interrupted meal and rest breaks, can result in significant damages when they occur repeatedly over an extended period of time.

Depending on the circumstances, employees may be entitled to recover unpaid wages, unpaid overtime compensation, meal and rest break premiums, waiting time penalties, wage statement penalties, interest, attorneys' fees, and other statutory penalties. If you believe your employer has failed to properly compensate you or otherwise violated California's wage and hour laws, it is important to consult an experienced employment attorney promptly, as California wage claims are subject to strict statutes of limitation.

Employment Contract Disputes

Employers are generally required to honor the terms of employment agreements, commission agreements, bonus plans, severance agreements, offer letters, and other contractual promises. When they fail to do so, employees may have a claim for breach of contract.

Employment contract disputes often involve unpaid commissions, earned bonuses, severance pay, promised compensation, equity awards, or other contractual benefits. Depending on the circumstances, employees may be entitled to recover unpaid compensation, contract damages, interest, attorneys' fees where authorized, and other available remedies. If you believe your employer has failed to honor its contractual obligations, Yousefzadeh Law, PC can help evaluate your rights with a complimentary case evaluation.

Failure to Accommodate & Interactive Process

California law generally requires employers to provide reasonable accommodations to qualified employees with disabilities and to engage in a good-faith interactive process to identify effective accommodations. Employers also have obligations to accommodate employees with qualifying religious beliefs and practices, as well as pregnancy-related conditions in many circumstances.

Reasonable accommodations may include modified work schedules, medical leave, assistive equipment, reassignment of job duties, remote work where appropriate, or other adjustments that enable an employee to perform the essential functions of the job. When an employer fails to provide a reasonable accommodation or refuses to engage in the interactive process, the employee may have a legal claim. If you believe your employer failed to accommodate your disability, pregnancy, or sincerely held religious beliefs, Yousefzadeh Law, PC can help evaluate your rights.

Yousefzadeh Law, PC represents employees throughout California in a wide range of employment law matters, including the following:

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