Recent Articles

Laid Off? You Still Have Rights! Part 2: Are You a Statistic?

November 17, 2008 15:17

This is our second post in a series on employees’ rights when they get laid-off from work.  In our last post, I pointed out that even though an employee may have been “laid-off” with several other employees, that does not necessarily mean they were not wrongfully terminated in ...

Laid Off? You Still Have Rights! Part One: Is Something Fishy?

November 14, 2008 22:20

It seems like every day another company announces mass layoffs in the United States.  While we are fielding more calls from potential clients than usual, they have not increased quite as much as overall unemployment. I think part of this might be attributable to a common employment law ...

Newsflash: Some Employment Law Defense Attorneys OK

September 27, 2008 22:44

A few days ago I happened upon an article about Littler Mendelson, P.C.  They are a large employment law defense firm and have offices in every major metropolitan area of California.  I would bet that if I looked at all of the cases our firm has handled over the years, Littler is the firm we [...]A ...

Are “Discretionary” Bonuses Really Discretionary?

August 07, 2008 22:37

Over the past couple of months I have been dealing with a case against a major national bank on behalf of one of its former employees.  The case involves his “discretionary” annual bonus, which most employers would say is just that-discretionary.  However, the term discretionary is m...

Employee Rights and Hourly Fees Do Not Mix

August 03, 2008 16:42

This past Friday I spoke with a potential client who was recently terminated by his employer.  I concluded that he did not have a case worth pursuing and any claims he did have were likely not worth pursuing if it meant giving up the severance his employer had already offered to him. At the end of ...

The Perils of Trying to Win at “All Costs”

June 29, 2008 23:24

Some employees (and some employee-rights attorneys) believe that if they are wrongfully terminated and able to get a new job just days later, they will only be able to recover a few thousand dollars and it would not be “worth it” to pursue a claim, especially if they have to pay an...

Family Status Discrimination and Equal Pay Laws

June 22, 2008 16:28

This post is part of our ongoing series dealing with “family status” discrimination.  Family status claims implicate several employment laws, depending on the facts of a given case.  For example, the federal Equal Pay Act (”EPA”) and also California law mandate “equal p...

Assumption Stereotyping as Family Status Discrimination

May 18, 2008 00:16

This is our second post in our series on “family status” discrimination. The last post dealt with examples of “moral stereotyping” where an employer’s belief on what women should do motivates their discrimination. This post deals with what I call...

Moral Stereotyping as Family Status Discrimination

May 03, 2008 22:01

This is my second post in our multi-part series on “family status” discrimination, which is becoming more and more common under both federal and state law. There are many ways family status discrimination can happen in the workplace, some of which are very subtle and difficult to prove....

Family Status Discrimination Series

April 16, 2008 14:45

One employment law claim that has been quickly becoming more popular these days is “family status discrimination”. That is, discriminating against someone based on their familial obligations or simply because they have a family in the first place. Widespread use of this claim is so...