Workplace Retaliation

There are numerous laws protecting the rights of employees in California and throughout the United States. Such rights include wage and hour compliance, as well as to be free from unlawful workplace discrimination and harassment. When your rights are violated, you should feel free to complain about the problem to your employer and to participate in an investigation into the violation.

Unfortunately, many employees worry their employer will take adverse action against them if they bring up discrimination, harassment, or another issue in the workplace. For this reason, the law further protects employees from retaliation for complaining of unlawful conduct or otherwise exercising their legal rights. If you think your employer engaged in unlawful retaliation, The Eghbali Law Firm is here to help.

Reasons for Retaliation

Employers can retaliate against employees for many different wrongful reasons, including:

• Complaining of discrimination or harassment
• Complaining of wage and hour violations

• Participating in an investigation into unlawful conduct
• Reporting unethical or unlawful conduct by an employer, such as fraud or an unsafe work environment

• Refusing to engage in unlawful or unethical conduct when requested by an employer
• Requesting or taking valid family and medical leave

As an employee, you have the right to do any of the above, and you should not experience negative effects of exercising your rights.

Forms of Retaliation

Retaliation can take the form of any adverse employment action. Such actions can include the following and more:

• Refusal to hire
• Denial of a promotion or pay increase
• Demotion or pay decrease

• Transfer to a less desirable position or assignment
• Reduction in hours
• Harassment

• Discipline
• Termination

 

Whether you are fired for your job or suddenly have mush less desirable job duties, it can still constitute unlawful retaliation, and The Eghbali Law Firm can help you fight back.

Retaliation Is the Most Common Case We See - and the Most Provable

More workers are punished for speaking up than for anything else employment lawyers handle. It is also the claim juries grasp instantly: you did something the law protects, and your employer made you pay for it. If your job changed after you complained, reported, requested, or refused - read the list below carefully.

What the law protects you for doing

Reporting harassment or discrimination, internally or to any agency. Complaining about unpaid wages or filing with the Labor Commissioner (Labor Code section 98.6). Reporting unsafe conditions to Cal/OSHA (section 6310 - and since AB 1947 took effect in 2021, you have a full year to file that retaliation complaint, not the six months some outdated advice still quotes). Whistleblowing on any practice you reasonably believe illegal, to a supervisor or an agency (section 1102.5). Requesting disability accommodation or pregnancy leave. Taking CFRA family leave. Filing a workers' compensation claim. Refusing to participate in something unlawful. Serving on a jury. The pattern: if the law gave you the right to do it, punishing you for doing it is illegal.

"Adverse action" is broader than firing

Termination is the obvious one, but demotion, cut hours, a sudden schedule designed to break you, exclusion from meetings your role requires, a transfer to a worse site, a manufactured performance plan - each counts if it would deter a reasonable employee from speaking up again.

The 90-day presumption changed everything

Since 2024, SB 497 gives retaliation claims under sections 98.6 and 1102.5 a rebuttable presumption: adverse action within 90 days of your protected activity is presumed retaliatory, and the employer must prove otherwise. Combine that with Lawson v. PPG (2022), where the California Supreme Court confirmed the employee-friendly burden framework for 1102.5 claims, and modern retaliation law tilts harder toward workers than most employers realize.

Build the timeline first

Retaliation cases are won on chronology. One page: date of your complaint (attach the email), then every job event after it, dated. Reviews before versus after. Who replaced you on the schedule. The gap between "protected activity" and "sudden problem" is the case - make it visible on paper.

Deadlines by statute

Section 1102.5 whistleblower claims: three years. FEHA retaliation: three years to CRD, one year to sue after right-to-sue. Cal/OSHA retaliation via section 98.7: one year. Tameny public-policy termination: two years. Public employees: six-month Government Claims Act notice for tort claims. Penalties can include an additional civil penalty up to $10,000 per violation for 1102.5 retaliation, on top of lost wages, emotional distress, and attorney's fees.