Having been regularly representing registered nurses, nursing assistants and medical assistants who work for major hospitals and other healthcare facilities in California, including such groups as Kaiser, Stanford Hospitals, and Sutter Health, I see the same patter of work related injuries over and over. A nurse or an assistant is…
San Francisco Employment Law Firm Blog
California Family Rights Act / FMLA Retaliation Claims
Under CFRA (California Family Rights Act), an employer is generally required to grant an eligible employee’s request to take up to a total of 12 workweeks in any 12-month period for family care and medical leave. CFRA or FMLA leave may be taken because of an employee’s own serious health…
Several Racial Jokes without More are Likely Insufficient to Prove Racial Harassment / Disrimination
The recently published case, DFEH v Lyddan Law Group, decided by the agency that reviewing DFEH decision, reaffirms that fact that an employee is unlikely to prevail on a racial discrimination/harassment claim when his/her boss makes racial jokes, off-color comments with regard to different races in an apparent desire to…
Proving Age Discrimination at Workplace in California in Court
Like any other kind of employment discrimination, proving age discrimination at workplace is anything but easy. Some employees believe that being terminated at the age of over 40 means they have a wrongful termination claim based on age discrimination. While the termination itself if one factor that may point at…
California Disability Rights at Workplace – Individualized Approach to an Employee is Required
The protections afforded to employee under the Federal and State disability laws are quite expansive and go far beyond protecting just those employee who have a “disability” the way an ordinary person would understand the term, such as being handicapped, or having suffered from a major traumatic injury. The US…
Rights of California Certificated Teachers Who May Suffer from Mental Illness
In Doe v Lincoln Unified School District, the Third District extensively discusses the rights of California certificated employees within California Education Section 44942, which provides a summary procedure for suspending or transferring to other duties a certificated school employee where there is reasonable cause to believe the employee “is suffering…
Wrongful Termination and Accepting Responsibility
Few wrongful termination, harassment, and discrimination cases are “clear cut.” No matter how strong the evidence of unlawful conduct by the employer is in the hands of the aggrieved employee, the employer always has its own side to the story, which usually says “We did nothing wrong, and the plaintiff…
EEOC Mediation is an Effective Tool for Resolving Employment Related Disputes
Yesterday, I attended my client’s mediation at EEOC (Equal Employment Opportunity Commission) office in San Francisco. In many ways, the proceedings were very similar to a typical private mediation of an employment case. However, I thought there were a few important advantages, at least in this particular case, over private…
Non-Compete Agreements and Wrongful Termination in Violation of Public Policy in California
The recent Silguero v. Creteguard, Inc., appellate decision from the Second Appellate district (Los Angeles County) is instructive on a less common issue arising out of the attempt by an employer to follow a non-compete agreement that the subject claimant signed with his former employer. In that case, shortly after…
Failure to Accommodate and Provide Reasonable Accommodations at SFMOMA
Yesterday, I met with a client – a very pleasant lady in her mid thirties who was forced to quit from the SFMOMA (San Francisco Museum of Modern Arts) due to what appeared to be egregious violations of California disability laws at workplace. The former SFMOMA employee has been suffering…