Discrimination · California
What counts as workplace discrimination in California?
Treating someone worse at work because of who they are, where who they are is one of the things California protects. The list is longer than most people expect, and the state's protections go well past the federal ones.
Two things have to be true. Something about you falls inside that list, and it changed how you were treated in a way that affected your job. Rudeness on its own isn't it. A manager nobody likes isn't it. The question is always whether a protected trait is doing the work.
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What California protects
Race and color, including hair texture and the styles that go with it. Religion, and the practices and dress that come with it. Sex, which takes in pregnancy, childbirth and breastfeeding. Gender identity and gender expression. Sexual orientation. Age, from forty. Disability, physical and mental, including conditions that come and go. Medical conditions and genetic information. National origin, ancestry, accent and the languages you speak. Marital status. Military and veteran status. Decisions you make about your own reproductive health.
Two that surprise people. Your immigration status is not a defense for an employer. The protections of California's labor and employment laws apply regardless of it, and a threat to report someone is itself unlawful. And lawful cannabis use away from work, on your own time, is now protected in most jobs.
What it looks like in practice
Different treatment. The same rule enforced against you and not against the person at the next desk. The write-up for lateness when three other people are late. The schedule everyone wants, going to everyone else.
Doors that don't open. The promotion that goes to someone you trained. The accounts reassigned after you disclosed a pregnancy. Being moved off the work that leads anywhere.
A rule that sounds neutral and isn't. A policy applied to everyone that in practice sweeps out one group. Those cases are real and they turn on numbers rather than on what anybody said.
Harassment severe or persistent enough to change the job. Slurs, comments about your body, jokes with a pattern behind them. California moved the bar here on purpose: a single serious incident can be enough, and a workplace that treats somebody's behavior as a personality rather than a problem is not safe ground for the employer.
Refusing to discuss an accommodation. For a disability or a religious practice, the law requires a conversation about what would let you do the job. An employer who never has it has already broken a rule, whatever the outcome would have been.
What doesn't count, said plainly
A bad manager who is bad to everyone. Being passed over by someone who was better for the job. One rude remark with nothing behind it. A firing for a reason that is unfair but has nothing to do with who you are.
It's worth saying because the honest answer on a first call is sometimes that there isn't a case. You'll hear that from me on the call rather than a month later.
How it gets proved
Rarely with a confession. Usually with documents and comparison.
Who else did the same thing and is still employed. What your reviews said before the thing you're complaining about and what they said after. How many people in your group were affected and how many outside it. Whether the explanation stayed the same each time it was given.
How long you have
A complaint to the state has a window measured in years, and it is not as long as it sounds once an investigation has to happen inside it. A public employer brings a much shorter clock that runs first.
The claim is over once a deadline passes, however strong it was.
What it costs
Nothing to talk to me. If I take the case you pay nothing unless money is recovered for you, and case costs come out of the recovery rather than out of your pocket. If we don't win, you don't pay.
Get in touch
More on how these cases run: discrimination and harassment.
Leave your name, a number and a sentence about what happened, and I'll call you back. Keep it short, and don't write out the confidential details here.
Sending this form doesn't make me your lawyer, and nothing protects a filing deadline until we've both signed a written agreement.
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Tell me what happened
Ten minutes on the phone is usually enough for me to tell you whether you have a case. If you do not, I will say so on the call.