A retail store employee has the mixed blessing and curse of excitedly anticipating the birth of her second child, while simultaneously fearing the loss of her job due her employer’s policies. Rather than allow the employee to continue working with a “light duty” restriction, the employer forced her onto maternity…
An employee who endured several alleged episodes of sexual harassment from a supervisor received a renewed opportunity to pursue her employer for the illegal conduct. The California Court of Appeal recently concluded that, although the harassment occurred outside the time period for filing a claim stated in the employee’s job…
Often, one of the more powerful tools an employee has in an employment discrimination case is raising the prospect of taking an employer to court and bringing about unwanted negative publicity. This is has never been more true than in today’s digital age of social media, where anyone can broadcast…
A nurse, fired after reporting sexual harassment he received at the hands of one of his supervisors, saw his nearly quarter-million damages award evaporate when the California Court of Appeal awarded his employer a new trial. In order to succeed on a claim of illegal retaliation, the law requires the…
A union member’s past criminal conviction proved to be the undoing of his racial discrimination claim, even though his union did not know about the conviction when it rejected him for an organizer position. The California Court of Appeal recently concluded in Horne v. International Union of Painters and Allied…
A recent ruling reiterated the rule that an employer may assert both trade secret and non-trade secret related claims, as long as the employer establishes separate bases for each. In Angelica Textile Services, Inc. v. Park, the California Court of Appeal allowed an employer to pursue its multi-claim action against…
A California appellate court demonstrated the considerable extensiveness of the rights of employees to be free from discrimination in the workplace with its recent decision in Rope v. Auto-Chlor System of Washington, Inc. The court concluded that the employer’s decision to fire an organ-donating employee rather than comply with a…
In the wake of a controversial termination of a San Diego schoolteacher who was a victim of domestic violence, the California legislature has passed, and Governor Jerry Brown signed, a new law expanding the reach of the state’s anti-discrimination laws to include victims of sexual assault, domestic violence and stalking.…