Orange County Employment Lawyers Blog

Richardson v. Wells Fargo Bank – Bank Under Fire for Alleged Wage Theft

October 23, 2016 | by Nassiri Law

Wells Fargo may have won the most recent round of wage and hour theft litigation, but the scrutiny it appears is far from over.

In Richardson v. Wells Fargo Bank, plaintiffs allege defendant violated the Fair Labor Standards Act by improperly classifying them as exempt employees, and thus failing to pay them the appropriate overtime they were due. Specifically, these were home mortgage consultants that were classified as being exempt from overtime .However, plaintiffs were also members of a class that had settled a class action lawsuit in California over these FLSA claims. The members had opted out of that settlement, but the district court ruled the previous settlement precluded this lawsuit and satisfied due process requirements. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit reviewed and agreed, affirming district court’s grant of summary judgment for defendant.

But that isn’t likely to be the end of Wells Fargo’s legal woes. CNNMoney has been following the newest wage theft violations, which has drawn the attention of the U.S. Occupational Safety & Health Administration (OSHA), which is reportedly now investigating after receiving “a number” of whistleblower complaints from the bank’s workers over the last five years. Continue Reading ›

Kowitz v. Trinity Health – Employer’s Duty to Provide Reasonable Accommodation for Workers With Disabilities

October 21, 2016 | by Nassiri Law

Title I of the Americans with Disabilities Act requires employers to give qualified persons with disabilities reasonable accommodation for work – unless doing so would create some type of undue hardship. Generally speaking, a reasonable accommodation is an alteration of the work environment or in the way things are usually done that enables someone with a disability to have employment opportunities that are equal.

This could mean:

An adjustment or modification to the job application process;
An adjustment or modification to the manner in which the job is typically performed or the work environment that gives the applicant/ worker a chance to perform the essential functions of the job;
Adjustments or changes that allow the worker with a disability the chance to enjoy equal privileges and benefits of employment, the same as other similarly-situated workers who don’t have a disability.

In order to trigger these rights, workers need to be able to perform the essential functions of the job and they need to request reasonable accommodation. In the recent case of Kowitz v. Trinity Health, the question was whether plaintiff made a request for accommodation that was adequate enough to trigger the interactive process of identifying a reasonable accommodation. Continue Reading ›

Lawsuit Against Yahoo for Employment Discrimination

October 18, 2016 | by Nassiri Law

According to a recent news article from the Silicon Valley Business Journal, a former media executive for tech giant Yahoo has filed an employment lawsuit in federal court claiming that he was wrongfully terminated and discriminated against by the company’s policies put in place by their CEO.

Specifically, this employee claims that after he was employed for three years as an editorial director at the company’s California location, he was wrongfully terminated in 2015. He said his termination was the result of a company-wide employee review policy that was consisted of intentional gender discrimination as well as a desire to save money by reducing the amount of money it spent on employee wages and salaries. After the current CEO was hired, she created a new quarterly review process to evaluate the performance of all key employees and make necessary changes in personnel based upon the result of these reviews. It was after one of the reviews that the employee who filed this was lawsuit was terminated. Continue Reading ›

Hill v. Delaware North Co. Sportservice: Wage and Hour Disputes

October 15, 2016 | by Nassiri Law

In Hill v. Delaware North Co. Sportservice, the plaintiffs worked at the concessions at Oriole Park at Camden Yards. This is the stadium where the Baltimore Orioles play their home games. This was an employment lawsuit filed over an alleged breach of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). The FLSA applies to employees in many situations in this jurisdiction as well as in the state of California.

In Hill, these employees were working for a company that provides concessions, including the sale of food and merchandise, at the baseball stadium. These days, it is much more likely that the people who work at a stadium or other type of large event work for a contractor as opposed to the owners of the facility itself. These contractors, of which there are only couple in each region of the county, will typically handle concessions for many different facilities. Since there is not full-time work at any one stadium in most cases, it is common for these employees to work at different sporting facilities and convection centers to get more hours. This is also true in terms of the private security personnel at a sporting event though they are usually employed by a different contractor than the one that handles the food and merchandise concessions. There is no question that sporting events are big business, and this is just part of the business. Continue Reading ›

Great Falls Clinic LLP v. Eighth Judicial Dist. Court: Employment Discrimination Cases

October 12, 2016 | by Nassiri Law

In Great Falls Clinic LLP v. Eighth Judicial Dist. Court, plaintiff was offered a position by the defendant and she accepted her offer of employment. After accepting the employment offer but before starting work, the employer rescinded their offer of employment and said they were no longer interested in employing plaintiff. This was not an oral offer and acceptance as employee had signed a written contract agreeing to work for employer.

Following their refusal to employ plaintiff, she filed a lawsuit claiming wrongful termination and a violation of the Wrongful Discharge of Employment Act, which is a local law applicable in this particular jurisdiction in which plaintiff and defendant were situated. This was a case based upon the theory of promissory estoppel, breach of contract, and breach of the relevant labor law. Continue Reading ›

Lord v. High Voltage Software, Inc.: Sexual Harassment at the Workplace

October 9, 2016 | by Nassiri Law

Lord v. High Voltage Software, Inc., a case from the Untied States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit involved an employee who claimed he was terminated after he filed a complaint for sexual harassment by a co-worker, which if true would be illegal retaliation. He also claimed his employer created a hostile work environment which is also violation of local and federal labor regulations.

In this case, employee worked for a software firm that designed video games. He began working there in 2006 and was assigned to what was known as the “Omni team” since all employees were assigned to a team when hired and them moved around from time to time based upon the employee’s relative skill and the needs of the company. In his complaint, claimant asserted that the year after he was employed, other male employees began to tease him by discussing the fact that they believed he was attracted to a particular female employee. Continue Reading ›

State v. Maine State Employees Ass’n: Employee Grievances

October 6, 2016 | by Nassiri Law

In State v. Maine State Employees Association, an employee with the state health and human services department was fired after a complaint that she had alcohol on her breath when meeting with a client. She was employed in this capacity from the mid 1980s to 2013 when she was terminated following this complaint.

Prior to her termination, she had been disciplined for drinking while on the job and entered into what the agency calls a “Last Chance Agreement.” This occurred in 2002. The agreement states that as condition of her continued employment, she would refrain from using or possession of any drugs or alcohol while she was being paid by her employer. In other words, she could not drink or use illegal drugs while she was on the clock. Continue Reading ›

California State Legislature to Bar Prospective Employers from Running Applicant’s Juvenile Record

October 3, 2016 | by Nassiri Law

There is no question that having a criminal record can make it hard to get a job. Even if it is not an outright bar to employment, you will often find that when two similarly qualified people apply for a single position, and one of the applicants has a criminal record, and the other does not, the prospective employee with a clean record tends to get hired over the other.

With a felony conviction it can be extremely difficult to get a job, and this makes things even tougher for someone who is making an honest effort to rehabilitate him or herself. With a misdemeanor conviction, it easier to get a job, but not if the misdemeanor conviction is related to theft or a misdemeanor sex offense which is often seen as particularly bad by prospective employers who are constantly worried about being sued for creating a hostile work environment. Continue Reading ›

Transgender, Racial Discrimination in Workplace Alleged Against GE

September 30, 2016 | by Nassiri Law

A black, transgender man is accusing GE (General Electric) of discrimination, sexual harassment and retaliation after he was reportedly fired from his job of two years. He cites the treatment he received prior to his supervisors learning that he was transgender versus after. The complainant alleges in an employment lawsuit the company violated not only federal and state laws, but also a city ordinance that prohibits workplace discrimination.

While the company insists plaintiff was fired for repeated tardiness, plaintiff says there is a good reason for that. He said rather than allowing him to use the male bathroom near his work station, he was forced to use a bathroom that was much farther, on the other side of the property. Then when he returned, he would be reprimanded for returning late from his breaks.

The worker was employed on the production line at the company. On one occasion, he was pulled off the line to meet with a supervisor. It was during that meeting that he revealed he was transgender. From that point forward, he says, he was singled out repeatedly and go additional reprimands for alleged offenses that co-workers were not called out for. Continue Reading ›

EEOC Issues New Retaliation Guidance for Workers

September 28, 2016 | by Nassiri Law

For the first time in nearly two decades, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) has revised its guidance on the issue of workplace retaliation. This is an important issue because retaliation is the most frequently-alleged basis of discrimination in federal lawsuits. It occurs when an employer fires, demotes, harasses or otherwise takes an adverse employment action in retaliation for a worker alleging discriminatory conduct.

The new EEOC Enforcement Guidance on Retaliation and Related Issues broaden and clarify the definition of what protected activities are. It also outlines the seven U.S. Supreme Court decisions on retaliation that have been handed down since the agency’s last update on the issue back in 1998. The new guidance notes certain expansion of retaliation rules based on changes in case law. Continue Reading ›