The importance of witnesses and witness statements in an employment or a wrongful termination case cannot be overstated. Even one witness can make a difference between having a no case and having a case, and between having a weaker case and having a very strong case. This is especially true…
Unlike many other claims that can only be brought against employers or individual employees, California anti-retaliation laws extend much further. In many cases, a retaliation case can be made in many cases against “any person”. This certainly applies to FLSA (Federal Labor Standards Act) and many California Labor Code provisions.…
Here are my top three tips on presenting your potential employment case or wrongful termination case to a lawyer: I. Be able to explain the basics of your case in just a few sentences to capture a lawyers attention right away. For instance the following would be an excellent way…
“Can I be fired while on disability leave?” – this is one of the most common questions that I hear from employees, who have suffered an injury and have to be off work due to that injury or some other illness. The answer to this question is twofold: (1) The…
EEOC (Equal Employment Opportunity Commission) and DFEH (Department of Fair Employment and Housing) are two main administrative agencies charged with address workplace discrimination. EEOC is federal agency, while DFEH is its California counterpart. These agencies pursue a very small number of cases that they pick from all the many inquiries…
It’s common for start-ups in the Bay Area that are low on funding to compensate their employees by granting equity only and without providing any actual salary or hourly pay. This is a mistake that entitles any such employee in California to make a claim for unpaid wages, interest, and…
On October 5, 2016, the Division of Labor Statistics and Research (DLSR) has announced a slight increase in the salary requirements for exempt employees under computer professional exemption. The increase is 1.3% as per California Consumer Price Index. Thus, effective January 1, 2017, the computer software employee’s minimum hourly rate…
The City of San Francisco has enacted this Ordinance to limit the employers’ ability to inquire into and consider an employee or applicant’s criminal history in hiring and employment decisions. The goal is to help individuals with past conviction to return to work force and be productive members of society,…
In the opening line of Cochran v. Schwan’s Home Service, Inc. (2014) the court says: “We hold that when employees must use their personal cell phones for work-related calls, Labor Code section 2802 requires the employer to reimburse them. Whether the employees have cell phone plans with unlimited minutes or limited minutes,…
The following was posted in advance of the launch of Toptal Scholarships for Female Developers. To support scholarship applicants, Toptal has also published a guide to making your first open source contribution. Women are underrepresented in tech. This realization is nothing new. Just look at numbers released by Facebook, Google, Intel, Slack, and many, many more.…