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LOS ANGELES WRONGFUL TERMINATION LAWYER ERIC A. PANITZ



We proudly represent employees throughout California, with special focus in Los
Angeles County and Orange County. Employment attorney Eric A. Panitz has over 15
years experience practicing law and has recovered millions of dollars in
monetary damages for California workers.

Our mission is to obtain justice for California employees. Whether you are the
victim of workplace retaliation, pregnancy or racial discrimination, or sexual
harassment, we can win the compensation you deserve. Our expert legal team has
an exceptional track record for winning cases, and we provide the highest level
of client service, supporting you at every step through your legal journey.

Your case evaluation is 100% FREE, and if we accept your case on contingency, we
won’t get paid until you do. We are here to help you fight back and win.

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$10M


     Retaliation

$4.93M


Truck & Auto Accident

$4M


Sexual Harassment

$1.95M


Age Discrimination

$1.74M


Sexual Harassment



WHAT IS WRONGFUL TERMINATION?

Wrongful termination is one of many ways your employer can illegally
discriminate or retaliate against you, breach employment laws, or violate your
legal rights as an employee.

Wrongful termination occurs when your employer fires you for any illegal reason.
That illegal reason could be employment discrimination, employer
harassment, retaliation, your membership in a protected class, or your
participation in a protected activity.

A protected class is a group of people with special protections under the law.
You could be a member of a protected class due to your:

 * Age (40 and older)
 * Race
 * Gender
 * Gender Identity
 * Disability, including chronic medical conditions like cancer, multiple
   sclerosis, and diabetes
 * Pregnancy
 * National Origin
 * Sexual Orientation
 * Religion
 * Medical Condition
 * Military or Marital Status

A protected activity is an action an employee may take without danger of being
lawfully fired for it. Protected activities include:

 * Complaining about overtime pay, unpaid wages, unsafe working conditions, or
   illegal activity by your employer
 * Obeying the law
 * Reporting a violation of the law
 * Exercising a legal or constitutional right

However, there are also times when an employee feels they have been wrongfully
terminated, but the company has not actually violated any employee rights. To
know the difference in your situation, it is important to seek the advice of a
wrongful termination attorney to have your case evaluated before taking legal
action. Wrongful termination lawsuits can be very complex, and there is no
substitute for the counsel of an experienced lawyer when your livelihood hangs
in the balance.

Click a topic below to learn more:





DOES MY EMPLOYER NEED TO SAY WHY I WAS FIRED?

No, your former employer is not required by law to explain why you were fired.
While an explanation is usually provided, employers often lie. If the real
reason your employer fired you is not a legal reason, your boss may refuse to
provide a reason, or make one up. Common made-up reasons are “poor performance”
or “policy violation.”

If your former boss invented a reason for firing you, or if co-workers who do
the same thing are not usually fired, this invented reason is called
pretext. Pretext is a false reason provided by an employer to justify an
unlawful termination. Here are some examples of pretext:

 * Your boss refuses to explain her reason for your termination, and you just
   returned from a four-month medical leave, we should strongly suspect the
   termination was due to your physical or mental disability.
 * You’ve been fired for ‘performance issues’ after missing work for
   chemotherapy treatments and time to recover from radiation. We can suspect
   your firing was disability discrimination due to your cancer.
 * You were laid off from your job, and you are a member of a protected class.
   We would examine the layoff to see if the other dismissed employees were also
   members of protected classes.
 * You were fired just after your pregnancy started to show. We can reasonably
   assume termination was due to your pregnancy.
 * You were sexually harassed prior to being fired. Here we can infer
   termination was due to your refusal to consent to further harassment.
 * You were fired after complaining about workplace safety, violation of
   environmental regulations, other illegal practices, or simply asking for your
   overtime pay. It is likely your termination was an act of retaliation by your
   employer.

When your company does give you a reason for your termination, it’s helpful if
you already know or suspect the real reason. However, if the real reason is not
obvious to you, a skilled wrongful termination lawyer can help you uncover the
truth. During your initial consultation, we can usually determine whether or not
an illegal reason factored into your termination. After listening to your story,
we will ask a series of questions to identify events or circumstances during the
last few months of your employment that may have provoked your employer to
terminate you.

Often, companies fire an employee for reasons unclear to the employee, but very
well-known to employment lawyers. One example is employees who take
intermittent FMLA (Family and Medical Leave Act) leave. Intermittent FMLA is
common for chronic or relapsing conditions such as diabetes, cancer, and
multiple sclerosis. While employers are required by law to provide FMLA leave,
it is often very inconvenient for them to do so. Because they cannot legally
tell the employee that FMLA leave was the reason for termination, companies
often come up with a false reason that’s not illegal — in other words, a
pretext.


WHAT IS AT-WILL EMPLOYMENT?

California is an at-will employment state, which means that your employer can
fire you at any time, for any reason, and without severance pay, as long as the
reason is not illegal. California law also allows at-will employees to quit at
any time, and for any reason, without needing to explain.

Employees are often surprised to learn that at-will employment gives employers
the freedom to fire employees they feel are underperforming, or to fire staff
when an economic downturn forces the company to downsize. Just as consumers have
the right to select and return purchases, at-will employment gives similar
rights to companies regarding hiring and firing practices.

There are some exceptions to at-will employment in California, including if you:

 * Have a union membership
 * Are a government worker
 * Have an employment contract specifying a fixed duration of employment (as
   with many professional athletes)

Of course, the at-will rule does not allow companies to fire employees for
illegal reasons. If an at-will employee had their rights violated when they were
fired, they may have grounds to sue the company for wrongful termination.


WHAT IS AN IMPLIED CONTRACT?

While written employment contracts can help demonstrate employer violations, a
written contract is not necessarily needed for a successful claim. An implied
contract is a type of agreement that is not written or expressed in words but
can be inferred from the actions and conduct of the parties involved. These
sometimes are the deciding factor in a winning case.

For example, you may claim your boss led you to believe, through actions and
statements, that you had job security for life, and that you would only be
terminated for cause (such as poor performance). If you can show sufficient
evidence to support this claim, you may be able to argue that the understanding
between you and your boss constituted an implied employment contract.

To prove the contract’s existence, you need to show your employer made
statements or took actions that led you to reasonably believe, for example, that
you had permanent employment. You will also need to show you relied on this
belief to your detriment, for example, turning down other job offers or
investing time and money in your job.

Employee handbooks can be useful tools in this capacity, as they sometimes have
provisions providing that termination shall be for cause, thus implying the
existence of a contract to be terminated. If an implied contract is found to
exist, you may be able to show that you were wrongfully dismissed in violation
of its terms.


WRONGFUL TERMINATION AS RETALIATION

Retaliation is a common theme in wrongful termination lawsuits. It occurs when
you take a protected action that your employer dislikes, and they respond with
an adverse employment action, such as termination, demotion, suspension,
harassment, or other discriminatory practices.

Retaliation is illegal under federal and state laws, including the Americans
with Disabilities Act, the Age Discrimination in Employment Act, and Title VII
of the Civil Rights Act. These laws protect employees from retaliation for
engaging in protected activities, such as opposing discrimination or harassment,
participating in an investigation or lawsuit, or reporting other misconduct or
illegal activity.

Employees often shy away from reporting problems out of concern they might be
retaliated against. But reporting issues, in writing (ideally from a personal
email account), is in fact your best protection against retaliation. Making a
protected complaint promptly, and reporting any retaliation as soon as you
notice it, gives you the best chance of prevailing in a lawsuit.


WRONGFUL TERMINATION AS DISCRIMINATION

Being fired is a painful and disorienting experience. Sometimes the reason for
your termination was clear, or maybe your employer gave you a reason. But often,
people are left to wonder what happened, or doubt the reason they were given.

Unfortunately, it’s common for an employer to hide an illegal reason for firing
you. If employer invented a pretext to cover the actual reason, you may have a
sense of what it was. That real reason is often a discriminatory one.

One example of this type of discrimination is when an employer terminates or
lays off an employee with cancer, who needs intermittent FMLA leave for
chemotherapy or to recover from radiation treatments. The employer may claim the
employee’s job is no longer available due to a layoff, but in reality, the
decision was based on the employee’s schedule adjustments for treatment,
complications, and frequent doctor’s appointments. If these conflict with
company priorities, such as production deadlines or maintaining a certain work
schedule, the termination should be suspected to be disability discrimination.

Similarly, a business may terminate you for excessive absences, despite the fact
that your absences were related to your diabetes and protected under the
Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). For example, you may need time during the
workday to monitor your blood glucose levels, take insulin injections, or manage
your blood sugar with snacks, result in absences that your employer uses as a
pretext for firing you.

As part of that pretext, the employer might claim that you are unable to perform
the essential functions of your job, even with reasonable accommodations. An
example of a reasonable accommodation for an employee with diabetes would be to
allow them to take short breaks during the workday to manage their diabetes, or
to have a private area to administer insulin injections.

Layoffs also present a ripe opportunity for employers to practice discriminatory
dismissal practices. They may attempt to disguise age discrimination against an
older employee by laying off some younger employees at the same time. In larger
layoffs, many laid-off workers may be in protected classes and are really being
dismissed due to their pregnancy, ethnicity, or disability.


I WAS JUST FIRED OR LAID OFF. WHAT SHOULD I DO?

If you believe you have been wrongfully dismissed from your job, or forced to
quit due to an untenable work environment, there are two critical steps you
should take immediately:

 1. Contact an experienced lawyer with a solid track record in wrongful
    termination lawsuits
 2. Collect every single document from your employer or related to your
    employment.


CONTACTING AN EXPERIENCED EMPLOYMENT LAWYER

In an ideal world, you’ll have scheduled a consultation with an experienced
employment attorney even before you are terminated. This is because, with the
right advice, you’ll be able to properly document the facts of your case, so
that the real reason for your termination becomes clear and is easier to prove.

We have a depth of experience in all areas of employment law and we offer an
initial case evaluation completely free of charge. If we take your case, it will
most likely be accepted on a contingency basis, which means that you are not
obligated to pay any attorney fees unless your case is won. We do not get paid
unless you do.

During your free case evaluation, we will evaluate your circumstances, and will
likely be able to determine whether your employer violated your rights in the
course of your termination or resignation.

For our law firm to perform a full evaluation of your termination, we will ask
for any documentation you can provide to support your wrongful termination
claim. Generally, the more documentation you are able to provide, the stronger
the case we can make against your former employer.


COLLECTING YOUR EMPLOYMENT CONTRACT AND OTHER DOCUMENTATION

Documenting every possible aspect of your employment tenure will be to your
great advantage in negotiations and in court. Often, you’ll have emailed
yourself documents from work, or sent written complaints to your employer from a
personal email account before your termination.

Using a personal email account is ideal because this allows you to keep copies
of all relevant documents even after your employer cuts off access to your work
email. These documents can often strengthen your case with critical evidence of
employer wrongdoing.

Here is the documentation we typically request from clients:

 * Job description
 * Employment contract
 * Union contracts
 * Personnel file
 * Pre-employment screening
 * Performance reviews/evaluations
 * Emails
 * Text messages sent to and from your boss or coworkers
 * Timecards, pay stubs, and payroll records
 * W-2 statement
 * Company employee manual or employee handbook
 * Contact information for co-workers who can support your claims
 * Termination or layoff notice
 * Notes, journals, or other records you kept about what happened

If you are still employed, it’s important for you email these to yourself at
your personal email address, so you can maintain your access after parting ways
with your employer.


FILING AN EEOC COMPLAINT

The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) is a federal agency that
investigates claims of employment discrimination. If you believe you have been
the victim of employment discrimination, you can file a complaint with the EEOC.
This is known as filing a charge.

To file a charge with the EEOC, in general, you must do so within 180 days of
the discrimination or wrongful termination. Some states, grant up to 300 days to
file a charge, but it is 180 days in California.

You can file a charge by contacting the EEOC directly or by contacting an
employment attorney. An employment attorney can help you with the process of
filing an EEOC complaint in several ways.

First, an attorney can help you determine if you have a valid claim of
employment discrimination. This is important because the EEOC will only
investigate claims that are covered by federal anti-discrimination laws.

Second, an attorney can help you gather and organize the evidence needed to
support your claim. This may include documents, witness statements, and other
forms of evidence that demonstrate that you were the victim of discrimination.

Third, an attorney can help you navigate the EEOC complaint process, including
working with the EEOC to mediate a resolution of your claim. If your claim is
not resolved through mediation, an attorney can help you pursue your claim
through the EEOC’s administrative process or by filing a lawsuit in court.


DO I HAVE A STRONG WRONGFUL TERMINATION CLAIM?

How do you know if you have a strong case? The main factor separating a good
case from a bad one is that good cases involve a protected class —
like age, disability, gender, race, national origin, or sexual orientation — or
an employee being retaliated against for making a protected complaint or
engaging in legally protected activity.

Employers often lie about the reason for an employee’s termination. The
strongest cases are those where an employee can disprove their employer’s stated
reason for termination, or where the employer’s stated reason simply makes no
sense. For example, it makes no sense if your employer says your position has
been eliminated, but you spent the last few weeks of your job training your
replacement.

With some exceptions, long-term employment generally makes for a stronger case.
It usually causes more hardship to be fired from a job you’ve held for 10 years
than to be fired from a job you’ve had for just a few weeks. Better cases also
involve a termination, rather than a failure to hire or a failure to promote.

There are, of course, exceptions. In a pregnancy discrimination case, it’s not
important how long the employee has been employed. What really matters is that
the employer knew about the pregnancy before deciding to fire the employee.

The same goes for sexual harassment cases. Even a one-week employee whose
supervisor does something sexually offensive makes a strong sexual harassment
and constructive discharge case. Constructive discharge is where an employee
quits their job because her supervisor does something that makes her feel
sexually uncomfortable — in effect, making her continued employment depend on
engaging in a sexual relationship with her boss.

So, pregnancy discrimination and sexual harassment cases don’t require long-term
employment to make great cases. The best cases, by far, involve any action by
the employer that shocks the conscience — an action that is deeply cruel,
callous, or unethical.

Sexual harassment obviously shocks the conscience. Termination in retaliation
for taking time off to care for an injured child shocks the conscience. Firing
an employee for taking time off for cancer treatment shocks the conscience,
especially when the employee is depending on their employer-sponsored health
insurance, and can no longer afford to do so.


WHAT DAMAGES CAN I WIN FROM A WRONGFUL TERMINATION LAWSUIT?

Wrongful termination cases are civil lawsuits. Several types of compensatory
damages are typically awarded to wrongfully terminated employees. The most
obvious damage is lost past and future earnings. When you lose your job, one of
the main things you lose is your wages. So, once you have proved you were
wrongfully dismissed, the compensation should include lost pay, and the wages
you would have received if you had not been fired.

If you still haven’t found suitable replacement employment by the time of your
trial, you will also be entitled to compensation for future lost wages and
future lost benefits. If you have found lower-paying replacement employment,
you’d be entitled to the difference between what you used to make and what you
are now making. If your health insurance coverage changed as a result of your
termination and you are incurring additional medical expenses as a result, these
can be included in your wrongful termination claim as well.

In addition to lost wages and benefits, you would be entitled to damages for
emotional distress. This is usually the largest part of the damages in the case.
To justify such damages, psychological records can be used to document your
emotional distress.

In wrongful termination cases where your employer has done something extremely
wrong, and that action was taken by somebody high up in the company, you may
also be entitled to punitive damages. These damages are not based on your actual
losses, but on an amount the court feels necessary to punish the employer in a
meaningful way — an amount the employer will “feel,” so they will think twice
before doing it again. This can be quite high for larger employers.

In addition to past and future wages, emotional distress, and punitive damages,
an employee who is wrongfully terminated is often entitled to compensation for
legal fees and costs incurred during the case. The law provides for one-way fee
shifting, which means the employee can be paid back for his or her legal fees,
but the employer cannot be reimbursed by the employee if the employer wins the
wrongful termination lawsuit.


SHOULD I LOOK FOR A NEW JOB DURING MY WRONGFUL TERMINATION CASE?

Yes, you absolutely can and should look for new employment while your case is
still pending, because the law requires you to try to minimize the damages
caused by your employer. In practice, this means you must keep a record of your
efforts to find replacement employment.

Things to track include:

 * Job search activities, including their date and location
 * Titles of any jobs applied for
 * Name, title, and phone number of any contacts made in the process (agencies,
   potential employers, etc)
 * Any documents created in the process (resumes, cover letters, emails, etc)
 * Next steps or results for each position

The bottom line is that you are obligated to try to find new employment, and,
even if you are unable to, you must document that you made an earnest effort.
You are not required to accept a job that is significantly below your
qualifications or pay rate, but you should not turn down appropriate employment
offers at similar pay.

Even if you are able to find suitable new employment, if there is an illegal
action, you can still be awarded the difference in your pay, plus emotional
distress damages, legal fees, and sometimes, punitive damages.




SHOULD I HIRE A WRONGFUL TERMINATION LAWYER?

Ultimately, there is no substitute for speaking with an experienced wrongful
termination attorney with knowledge across the range of employment matters. A
wrongful termination lawyer does the legal detective work to find out which laws
or regulations may have been violated by your employer, determine whether you
have a strong case, and enact the crucial steps needed to maximize your recovery
in a lawsuit.

The legal issues surrounding unlawful termination in California are often
extremely complex, with numerous factors influencing the determination of a
case’s strength and the likelihood of a positive outcome. In addition, every
wrongful termination case is unique, and different employment laws may apply,
depending on your situation.

When you consult with the expert legal team at Wrongful Termination Law Group,
your goals, concerns, and options will be addressed by an experienced employment
lawyer. Our law firm has established a reputation for excellence in employment
law, and we are dedicated to helping you recover the compensation you
deserve. Contact us today for a free case evaluation.

GET MY FREE CASE REVIEW
GET MY FREE CASE REVIEW

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