Santa Barbara Employment Law Blog
What to know about wrongful termination cases
Employees in California and throughout the country may be entitled to various forms of compensation or other relief if they are wrongfully terminated. For example, it may be possible for a worker to recover lost wages and expenses incurred pursuing the lawsuit against...
Defining what constitutes wrongful termination
Employment in California is at-will, meaning that an employer may fire an employee for any reason, legitimate or not, so long as it is not discriminatory or retaliatory. A termination is discriminatory or retaliatory if it is based on a characteristic that is...
U.S. Supreme Court extends protections to LGBT workers
Many Californians are already aware of the U.S. Supreme Court decision extending federal legal protections to the LGBT community. On June 15, the Supreme Court, in a 6-3 ruling, held that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which protects against discrimination...
The elements of a constructive discharge
A constructive discharge occurs when an employee decides to quit a job because of hostile working conditions. Under California law, an individual must be able to show that a reasonable person would have made the same decision when pursuing a wrongful constructive...
Ageism still prevalent in the workplace
Many major industries in California, such as the technology industry, have always geared towards younger workers due to the misconceptions surrounding the technological skills of older workers. These misconceptions have been heightened amid the COVID-19 pandemic and...
National Origin Discrimination in the Workplace
In California and across the US, discrimination can happen in the workplace. National origin discrimination occurs when company employees or job applicants are treated unfairly based on their national origin, ethnicity or accent, or perceived national origin. This...
All workers can be victims of sexual harassment
When most people think about sexual harassment, they may assume that the perpetrator is a man and that the victim is a woman. However, employees in California and throughout the country can be victims of sexual harassment regardless of their gender or the gender of...
California court grants certification in equal pay class action
California is known for having some of the most employee-friendly laws in the country, giving employees more protections in the workplace than they would have in nearly any other state. Despite this, gender discrimination is still a common occurrence at the office,...
What to know about disparate impact at work
Employers are not allowed to create workplace policies that have a disparate impact on employees. This is true even if a California company had no intention of discriminating against a protected class of people when creating it. According to Title VII of the Civil...
Papa John’s agrees to settle wage and hour class action
Media outlets have reported that Papa John’s has agreed to pay $3.4 million to settle a class-action lawsuit filed by workers who accused the Kentucky-based pizza chain of violating California wage and hour laws and the federal Fair Labor Standards Act. The plaintiffs...
