Los Angeles Employment Lawyer Blog

Riverside, California is the home to many employees. If you are one of the over 300,000 residents who call Riverside home and have been fired or terminated from work without just or authorized cause, then you might have been wrongfully terminated and need an experienced employment attorney. Wrongful employment cases in California are difficult to prove, which is where the assistance of an employment lawyer will be very beneficial for you.

At-will employees make up the majority of employees in California. While an at will employee in Riverside, or any where in CA, can be fired at any time, an employer cannot fire an employee in violation of public policy or due to retaliation or discrimination. These are a few exceptions provided by Federal and California law. One of our knowledgeable employment attorneys can help you determine if your case also falls under one of the several exceptions covered by law.

If you live in Riverside, California, and you feel like you have been the victim of wrongful termination, or fired without good reason, call the Law Offices of Greenberg & Rudman LLP at 1-800-252-9776 (1-800-ALAWPRO). Not only have our experienced employment attorneys practiced successfully for years in Riverside, CA, but our employment attorneys understand California employment law and know your rights. Call now for a free consultation regarding your wrongful termination claim and to hear how one of our knowledgeable employment lawyers may be able to help you.

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If your employer reimburses you for business-related cell phone charges or provides you with a company cell phone, your employer should provide you with a hands-free device or at least reimburse you for the expense of purchasing one on your own. If your job requires that you use your own cell phone while on company business, the expense of outfitting the phone with a legal hands-free device must be paid by the employer. An experienced California employment attorney can help you determine if your employer should be providing you with or compensating you for purchasing a hands-free device to use while you are driving.

As of July 1, 2008 the long-awaited California Wireless Telephone Automobile Safety Act is in effect. How does this new California law affect your rights as an employee? This law prohibits drivers over the age 18 from using handheld wireless telephones while driving, unless the device allows for hands-free listening and talking. A person whose cell phone has speakerphone capabilities can use the speaker phone function while driving. Though text messaging while driving is not against the law as of this time, a police officer can cite you for texting while driving if he feels you are distracted as a result of the texting.

Your employer may not insist that you violate the law when carrying out your job responsibilities. Your employer might be violating the new cell phone law in California by demanding that you continue to use your company cell phone while driving but not providing you with a hands-free device such as a Bluetooth or other ear piece. If you are in California, call us now at the Law Offices of Greenberg & Rudman LLP at 1-800-252-9776 (1-800-ALAWPRO) for a free consultation regarding your legal rights and to hear how one of our experienced employment lawyers may be able to help you.

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Anahiem, California, as many of us know, is home to Disneyland; along with many other amusement parks and sports stadiums. The second largest city in Orange County, with a population of almost 350,000, Anaheim can proudly boast of its booming tourism industry. With the amusement parks, the numerous hotels and resorts, the baseball stadium, and the Anahiem Convention Center, many Anaheim and Orange County residents are employed in the tourism industry. While as those of us who are in the tourism and hospitality industries understand that the customer comes first, employees in these lines of business need to remember that their workplace needs cannot be sacrificed as a result of this need to please the customer.

A hostile work environment is never acceptable. Whether the hostility is a result of sexual harassment or race, national origin, religion, or gender discrimination, an experienced employment lawyer can help you determine if you are the victim of an unhealthy work environment. With almost half of Anaheim’s population made up of Latinos or Hispanics and another large percentage consisting of Asians and African Americans, the residents of Anahiem, California are diverse. This diversity among the residents of Anaheim might lead to diversity in the work place, which can often create tension and hostility.

Do you believe you have been a victim of racial, national origin, sexual orientation, or religious discrimination in your work place? Or have you been sexually harassed by your employer or another co-worker? An experienced employment lawyer can help. Our employment lawyers have practiced for years in Orange County and know how to fight for your rights. Call our employment attorneys at Greenberg & Rudman LLP at 1-800-252-9776 (1-800-ALAWPRO) for a free consultation in California regarding your legal rights and to hear how one of our experienced employment lawyers may be able to help you.

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Posted In: EMPLOYMENT CLAIMS , WORKPLACE DISCRIMINATION

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In a recent court case, a New Mexico judge ruled that a woman who had admitted to her employer that she had smoked marijuana could not be fired or discriminated against as a result of her drug use and awarded her $25,000 in damages. The woman, a 911 employee, informed her employer that she had smoked marijuana two years before. Along with two other employees, she was fired for admitting her drug use. The two other employees were given the opportunity to appeal their termination. The New Mexico woman was not given the same opportunity.

The woman claimed that her employer, the Mesilla Valley Regional Dispatch Authority, had singled her out because of complaints she had made about a supervisor. Or, in other words, the woman stated that she had been retaliated against by her employer. Retaliation is illegal both in California and throughout the United States.

Retaliation occurs when an employer takes an adverse (such as termination, refusal to hire, or demotion) against a covered individual because he or she engaged in a protected activity. A covered individual is an employee who has opposed unlawful practices, participated in proceedings, or requested accommodations related to employment discrimination based on race, color, sex, religion, national origin, age, or disability. In this case, the protected activity was filing a lawful complaint against her employer/supervisor.

Do you believe you have been discriminated against or retaliated against for admitting your past drug use? Experienced employment lawyers might be able to help you recover damages for any pain, suffering, or lost wages you may have incurred as a result of retaliation. Call our employment attorneys at Greenberg & Rudman LLP at 1-800-252-9776 (1-800-ALAWPRO) for a free consultation in California regarding your legal rights and to hear how one of our experienced employment lawyers may be able to help you.

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Posted In: EMPLOYMENT CLAIMS , WORKPLACE DISCRIMINATION

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In CA, it is the law that your employer allows you to take a 30 minute meal break for every 5 hours you have worked, if your work day is longer than 6 hours. Even if your work day is less than 6 hours, you must agree to waive your right to a meal break with a written agreement between you and your employer. The California Labor Code also requires that employers permit employees to take a rest period lasting at least 10 minutes for every 4 hours worked. There are very few exceptions to the California meal break and rest break rules and an experienced lawyer will be able to help you make sure your rights as a CA employee are being protected.

Additionally, the law in CA provides that if you qualify for a meal period and your employer fails to provide you with one, your employer owes you one hour of pay at your regular rate of compensation for each work day that the meal period is not provided. The law in California is very protective of your rights as an employee, which include the right to take meal and rest breaks. It is illegal in CA for your employer to ask you to waive your meal break or to make you take your meal break at the beginning or end of your shift. For example, if your shift is 8 hours, your employer cannot demand that you take your meal break after 7.5 hours of work, and then send you home. The law clearly states that for certain employees, a meal break is required after 5 hours of work. An experienced employment attorney will help you determine if your meal break and rest period rights are being violated.

Talk to your employer to ensure that you are receiving the meal breaks and rest periods you are entitled to as a CA employee. If you feel like your employer is not providing you with the appropriate breaks, call the Law Offices of Greenberg & Rudman LLP at 1-800-252-9776 (1-800-ALAWPRO) for a free consultation regarding your legal rights in California and to hear how one of our experienced employment attorneys may be able to help you. Your call is completely confidential, and we are here to help.

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A judge found Wal Mart guilty of breaking over 2 million labor laws, including requiring hourly employees to work off-the-clock during training and denying its employees full rest or meal breaks, in a very recent court case. Both federal and California state laws require that an employer pay its employees for overtime based on a certain number of hours the employee works each week. An experienced employment attorney can help you determine if you are not being paid for the hours you are working over time. A California employment lawyer can also make sure you are receiving the meal and rest breaks you deserve.

This is the latest of several court cases in which WalMart has been found guilty of not protecting the interests of its employees. Wal Mart is no different from any other employer in that it is up to an employer to make sure he has you, the employee’s, best interests in mind and provides you with a secure and law-abiding work environment. This might include compensating you if you have worked overtime and providing you with meal and rest periods.

If you believe that your rights as a California employee have been violated because you are not being compensated for hours you worked overtime or you are being prevented from taking meal and rest breaks, the California law offices of Greenberg & Rudman LLP are here to help. To speak with one of our experienced employment attorneys and hear how we might be able to assist, call Greenberg & Rudman LLP at 1-800-252-9776 (1-800-ALAWPRO) for a free consultation now regarding your legal rights.

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In a recent California case, the court determined that an Ontario, California police officer had the right to expect his text messages would be private and not read by his employer, even though he was using a cell phone provided by the Ontario police Department. According to the Fourth Amendment of the US Constitution and the CA Constitution, an employee has a reasonable expectation of privacy in his text messages. The CA Appellate Court decided this was the case even though the City, the police officer's employer, had informed the officer that he should have no expectation of privacy or confidentiality when using these resources. Additionally, the officer signed a form stating he understood that the City reserved the right to monitor and log all network activity including e-mail and Internet use, with or without notice. Still, the CA court determined that the employee's rights were violated by this unlawful search.

While emails sent using the company's server are not usually protected by the Fourth Amendment, the text messages you are sending on your company's phone might be protected from your employer's eyes. This means your employer cannot fire you, discriminate against you, or mistreat you because he has (probably unlawfully) read your text messages. An experienced California employment lawyer will help you determine if your rights are being violated.

Has your employer been reading your text messages? Has she also been treating you differently or discriminating against you as a result? If you live in California and you feel like your privacy has been violated or that you have been discriminated against as a result of your privacy being violated by your employer, call us at now at Greenberg & Rudman LLP at 1-800-252-9776 (1-800-ALAWPRO) in CA for a free consultation regarding your legal rights and to hear how one of our experienced employment attorneys may be able to help you. Your call is completely confidential, and we are here to help.

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In a recent Orange County, California case, an OC judge ruled that if you are not paid all your wages owed at the time of your termination, or if you quit and are not paid all the wages you are owed within 72 hours of departure, you may be entitled to Waiting Time Penalties. Waiting Time Penalties represent up to thirty days of wages. These 30 days of wages represent thirty individual days of wages, not one month's pay. Does your former employer owe you Waiting Time Penalties? An experienced employment lawyer can make sure you receive the Waiting Time Penalties compensation you deserve.

The right to the waiting time penalty is self-executing, meaning that as a former employee you are not required to do anything affirmative — "take action" — in order to be entitled to the continuing right to wages. The waiting time penalty is immediately due and payable to you, the employee. If your employer did not pay you all the wages owed to you when you left the company, an employment attorney might be able to help you recover in restitution and receive compensation for your lost wages.

Does your former employer still owe you wages? Have you contacted your former employer and he still won’t pay you what you are lawfully owed? If you are in California, call us now at the Law Offices of Greenberg & Rudman LLP at 1-800-252-9776 (1-800-ALAWPRO) for a free consultation regarding your legal rights and to hear how one of our experienced employment lawyers may be able to help you.

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The California Labor Code states that your employer must provide you with safe working conditions, so it is within your rights under CA law to report unsafe conditions to your employer and to ask for your employer to implement corrective measures.. Your workplace environment must also be conducive to your health, and it is up to your employer to do everything it can to protect and safeguard you while you are within your work place. If your employer retaliates against you for reporting an unsafe work condition, an experienced employment attorney can help you defend your rights.

Examples of employer retaliation for reporting an unsafe workplace include termination, getting laid off, demotion, discrimination, or threatening any of the above. As an employee in the state of CA, you have the right to make oral or written complaints when you notice problems within your work environments. These complaints should never subject you to retaliation by your employer. If you are retaliated against as a result of reporting an unsafe working condition, the law is on your side. Experienced employment lawyers might be able to help you recover damages for any pain, suffering, or lost wages you may have incurred as a result of retaliation.

Call our employment attorneys at Greenberg & Rudman LLP at 1-800-252-9776 (1-800-ALAWPRO) for a free consultation in California regarding your legal rights and to hear how one of our experienced employment lawyers may be able to help you.

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If you are injured on the job in California due to physical injury or stress you are entitled to file a workers comp claim. CA law dictates that your medical expenses need to be paid. In addition, you should get paid for time off from work. This replaces the wages you would have earned on the job. An experienced employment attorney can help you make sure you are receiving the treatment from your employer that you should.

In CA, workers' compensation benefits are paid by an employer's workers compensation insurance policy. Your employer must have workers comp insurance because California law requires employers to have worker’s compensation insurance if they have even one employee. Additionally, your employer cannot retaliate against you for filing a workers comp claim. An example of retaliating includes firing you even though you can still do your job. If your employer does retaliate against you for filing such a claim, you can file another claim for discrimination and be awarded more money in damages.

If you have filed a workers compensation claim and have not been adequately compensated or you believe your employer is discriminating against you after you filed the claim, you should call us now at the law offices of Greenberg & Rudman LLP at 1-800-252-9776 (1-800-ALAWPRO) for a free consultation in California regarding your legal rights and to hear how one of our experienced employment lawyers may be able to help you.

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Posted In: DISABILITY / MEDICAL DISCRIMINATION , EMPLOYMENT CLAIMS

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Are you a non-exempt worker? (If you don’t know the answer to whether you are a non-exempt employee or an exempt employee, click here to find out). If you are a non-exempt worker, is your employer asking or expecting you to work more hours, but is not compensating you for your extra time? Whether you are an hourly employee or a salaried employee, an experienced employment lawyer can make sure that if you are working overtime that you are getting paid for your time as a non-exempt employee. Wage and hour rules are governed by both the California Labor Code and the Federal Fair Labor Standards Act. In addition to receiving payment for hours worked over time, if you are working overtime you are entitled to legally-mandated meal and rest breaks.

A few examples of how employers violate an employees' wage and hour requirements include:

• You are misclassified as "exempt" from receiving overtime pay


• You are not provided an uninterrupted meal break within the first five hours of work


• Your employer fails to provide ten minute breaks for every four hours of work


• Your employer fails to provide paid time for tasks required to prepare for work


• Your employer fails to provide a second meal break for shifts longer than ten hours


• Your employer fails to ensure that employees being paid per-project are meeting minimum wage requirements.


• Your employer fails to provide proper pay stubs with all required information

If you are concerned that you have been working overtime in California but have not been compensated adequately for your hours, call the lawyers at the Law Offices of Greenberg & Rudman LLP at 1-800-252-9776 for a free and confidential consultation. You won’t owe us any money for the call, and we work on a contingency, which means that we don’t get paid unless you get paid. Call 1-800-ALAWPRO now- we’re here to help.

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Many times a victim only seeks a lawyer after they have exhausted all other resources. They have been fired (wrongfully), and they have no way to make up the costs of an employer’s bad judgment. But seeking an attorney can be very costly, and there seems to be no way to proceed with your case.

The attorneys of Greenberg & Rudman LLP have been representing employees with employment law cases for many years. They know what it is like to lose your job, worry about feeding your family, and yet, know that your employer should pay for breaking the law. There isn’t just one way to proceed with a case, and the attorneys of Greenberg & Rudman LLP have made it their business to care for cases like yours.

Many of our cases work on contingency fee. A contingency fee arrangement is where our attorneys agree to represent you, yet you don’t get charged the attorney’s fees up front. If your case is taken, the attorney’s get paid only when you do, by taking a percentage of the money recovery after you win your case. Depending on the agreement, our attorneys may or may not advance the costs of litigating the case if it goes to trial. But our mission is clear, we want to help you, even when we know you can’t afford to pay up front.

If you have an employment case, call the attorneys of Greenberg and Rudman LLP at 1-800-252-9776 for a free consultation regarding your legal rights and how one of our experienced employment lawyers may be able to help you.

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Like many other states, California is an at-will state for most jobs, unless specified otherwise in a specific employment contract. At-will has also been called a “right to fire” and a “right to hire” state. This means that for most employees, you can be fired for many reasons, including your employer just not liking you. Many times, an employee will want to bring a wrongful termination suit against their employer, only to find out that your employer may have been morally wrong in firing you, but they have done nothing legally wrong.

To be eligible for wrongful termination in an at-will state, you must be in a protected class. These classes include: gender, race, national origin, medical disability, and age, to name a few. Beyond just being in one of these classes, you must show that your employer fired you based on this classification. For example, it is not enough that you be black when you are fired, you must show that your employer fired you because you are black. This is much harder to prove, but in circumstances surrounding the firing may have been the actual reason.

Further, you may be able to recover for wrongful termination if you were terminated in violation of public policy. This could mean you were a whistleblower, or that you were out of work due to jury duty, or your employer was engaged in safety violations that prevented you from going in to work (and you were thereby fired).

However, the majority of cases in an at-will employment state are simple – you can be fired for good cause, bad cause, or just because your employer didn’t want to keep you on any longer. Not all cases are ripe for seeking an attorney. If you suspect that you were fired due to your protected class, you have been the victim of past discrimination or harassment, or you were terminated after you blew the whistle on your employer, you should call the law offices of Greenberg & Rudman LLP at 1-800-252-9776 for a free consultation in California regarding your legal rights and how one of our experienced employment lawyers may be able to help you.

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In a recent case in Massachusetts, a woman reported discrimination in her workplace, specifically, the Police Review and Advisory Board. Later, her employers told her she would be fired. She sought the advice of employment lawyers who helped her to file a retaliation suit and was recently awarded $4.5 million dollars, over $3.5 million of which was punitive damages. The City of Cambridge was found to have engaged in wrongful retaliation, or wrongfully threatening to fire her based on her whistle blowing about the discrimination within the department.

Retaliation is illegal. Many employers engage in suspected illegal activity, and the law protects you when you blow the whistle, or report that suspect activity to an outside agency. If your employer finds out you have reported them, and they discriminate, harass, threaten to fire, or actually fire you based on your having blown the whistle, Federal and State laws protect your rights against this retaliation.

The Employment attorneys of Greenberg & Rudman, LLP, have extensive experience in representing retaliation victims in California. Whether you h