California gender discrimination

California Gender Discrimination Lawsuit Against Gamer Settled for $100 Million

August 7, 2022 | by Nassiri Law

A California gender discrimination lawsuit against a prominent gaming company has been approved for settlement at $100 million, to be split (after legal costs) among 1,000 employees (current and former) employed by the firm in 2018. The deal was approved by the court following allegations of widespread sexism and gender-based harassment. It follows a previous $10 million proposed settlement in 2019 that the California Department of Fair Employment & Housing rejected as inadequate. (The agency estimated the company could easily owe female employees upwards of $400 million for misconduct.)

Plaintiffs in the case described a “toxic” on-the-job culture at Riot Games, a $1.6 billion tech firm with rampant “bro culture,” rife with harassment, sexism, and discrimination. In August 2018, gaming news site Kotaku published an expose detailing how problematic the company culture had become.

Some of the anecdotes detailed:

Female employees were described as “too punchy,” “not gamer enough,” “too emotional,” “too aggressive,” “too ambitious” or having “too much ego” to be leaders at the company.
Supervisors would ask female employees if it was tough to work there while “being so cute.”
Supervisors would comment in public meetings about how the husbands and kids of female employees must really miss them while they were at work.
The idea of a female worker fell flat during a meeting. A male colleague, skeptical of her claim of sexism, agreed to present the same idea in the same manner to the same group at another meeting a few days later. The reception this time around was that this idea was “amazing.”
Women alleged they worked jobs above their title and pay grade, believing they were being groomed for a promotion, only to have a male employee suddenly brought in to replace them.
Constant, unsolicited exposure to images of male genitalia displayed by male supervisors.
A female worker was accidentally CC’d on an internal group e-mail in which a male co-worker indicated he’d like to sleep with her and then never call her again.

Strengthening California Employment Discrimination Protections, “Silenced No More Act” Becomes Law

October 8, 2021 | by Nassiri Law

Stronger protections against California workplace harassment and discrimination are on the way, with Gov. Gavin Newsome’s signing of the “Silenced No More Act,” or SB 331. The measure builds on the protections established in 2018 with the Stand Against Non-Disclosures (STAND) Act, targeting non-disclosure agreements in sexual harassment cases in the wake of the #MeToo movement.

As our Los Angeles employment lawyers can explain, SB 331 amends both the California Fair Employment and Housing Act (FEHA) and the California Code of Civil Procedures, Section 1001. It imposes major restrictions on both employment settlement agreements and severances. Continue Reading ›

California Gender Discrimination Lawsuit Alleges Female Prison Workers Harassed, Undermined

June 4, 2021 | by Nassiri Law

A California gender discrimination lawsuit has been filed against the state corrections department, with a female maintenance worker alleging her previous employer repeatedly harassed and targeted her because of her gender. Plaintiff says her former manager not only discriminated against her, but jeopardized workers’ safety and wasted money in the process.

According to The Sacramento Bee, plaintiff was passed over for a promotion and endured emotional and psychological stress due to the manager’s treatment. She’s seeking damages for lost wages, benefits and emotional distress. Ultimately, she is hoping the litigation will draw attention to how women are treated in male-dominated professions, prisons in particular.

According to the Federal Bureau of Prisons, approximately 28 percent of the staff are female. For decades, women only worked in facilities housing female prisoners. But despite their ranks growing significantly in all sectors since the 1970s, female employees at all prisons have routinely suffered abuse and harassment from inmates and guards. It doesn’t help that for years, there has been public criticism of these workers, alleging the work is simply too dangerous for women and urging them to simply leave. Continue Reading ›

Pay Secrecy Cited in California Gender Discrimination Lawsuit

April 8, 2021 | by Nassiri Law

Nearly a dozen women are suing the Walt Disney Company for California gender discrimination, saying the corporation systemically denies fair pay to its female employees and that pay secrecy is integral to that inequality.

As our Los Angeles gender discrimination lawyers can explain, pay secrecy is a policy long used by employers that prohibits employee discussions about how much they earn. While silence over salaries tends to be the societal norm, it’s not the law. What’s more, it’s been shown to perpetuate gender pay disparity against women because it deprives female employees of the information they need to demand equal pay.

According to California Labor Code section 232, employers are banned from these types of secrecy policies and cannot discipline workers on the basis of wage disclosures. It hasn’t been a commonly litigated provision historically (it’s been a state law since 1985), but there has been somewhat of an uptick in these sorts of claims over the last several years. California law stipulates that employers cannot require employees to refrain from disclosing wages, require employees to waive this right or take averse employment action against workers who do. Employers who violate this provision (usually in conjunction with some other type of employment discrimination claim) can be compelled to pay substantial damages, including for lost wages and benefits, emotional distress and punitive damages.

There is also the California Fair Pay Act, which goes even further to shield employees’ right to discuss their own pay openly with co-workers. Beyond that, the National Labor Relations Act of 1935 prohibits employer retaliation against workers who talk wages with their co-workers.

And yet, some employers persist with policies like these. Continue Reading ›

$7 Million Awarded in California Police Gender Discrimination Claim

May 1, 2019 | by Nassiri Law

A woman who served as chief of police in Baldwin Park, about 20 minutes outside of Los Angeles, has been awarded $7 million in a California race and gender discrimination employment lawsuit filed five years ago. The case was among the few gender discrimination claims in California to actually go to a jury trial.

Gender Discrimination in Police Departments

Federal law prohibits harassment on the basis of a person’s gender. This includes sexual harassment, of course, but also harassing a woman or making comments about females generally, as noted by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Individuals of either gender can be either victim or harasser, and those involved can be supervisors, co-workers or clients/customers.

Although the law doesn’t bar “simple teasing,” isolated incidents of minimal seriousness and offhand comments, it’s illegal when it’s so severe or frequent that it creates an offensive and hostile work environment OR when the result is an adverse employment action, such as demotion or termination. Continue Reading ›