Orange County employment attonrney

While many people have the same schedule for work in any given week, this is a luxury most in the Los Angeles retail industry do not enjoy. According to a recent news article from CBS Los Angeles, a new study from the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA), finds most retail workers face the difficulties of a constantly shifting schedule and it creates a serious hardship in many aspects of their lives, especially when it comes to arranging for child care.

Working in a retail environment often means workers must wait for the next week’s schedule to come out to know what days and hours they will be required to work. There is often a mechanism for requesting certain times off, but employer’s do not always approve such requests, and even if they do, it is not uncommon for these approved-requests to be completely ignored when putting out a schedule. This is not only true for those in the retail industry, but also for those in the service industry, such as working at a restaurant. Continue Reading ›

Wrongful termination is a common claim by former employees, and a common source of liability for employers. Yet the specific circumstances in which wrongful termination laws apply can be confusing at best. Recently, the California Court of Appeals decided that an employer neither violated disability discrimination laws, nor otherwise wrongfully terminated an employee who sought to withdraw her voluntary resignation.

The San Diego Union-Tribune reports that Ruth Featherstone was an employee of Southern California Permanente Medical Group when she returned from a medical leave of absence on December 16, 2013. On December 23, Featherstone resigned, telling her supervisor that “God had told her to do something else”. On December 31, Featherstone asked to rescind her resignation, claiming that she had been under the effects of medication at the time it was tendered. The employer declined.

Featherstone’s lawsuit against the medical group centered on California disability law, which protects an employee from any “adverse employment action” as a result of a disability. The Court ruled that Featherstone had the right to rescind her resignation until Permanente employees processed it. Once accepted, however, Permanente was under no obligation to allow her to rescind the resignation. Permanente was also under no continuing duty to accommodate Featherstone’s disability and purportedly altered mental state once it accepted her resignation. Continue Reading ›

Articles Tagged with Orange County employment attonrney

Study Shows Shifting Schedules Major Problem for LA Retail Workers

Appellate Court Protects Employer’s Right to Refuse Withdrawal of Employee’s Voluntary Resignation