Los Angeles Retaliation Attorney

Employers are prohibited from firing someone in response to an employee’s complaint of discrimination, sexual harassment, or other illegal activity.

If your employer has retaliated against you for complaining about discrimination or blowing the whistle on illegal activity, you may feel helpless, especially if you work for a large, powerful company. But you are not alone. Our Strong Advocates legal team has helped our clients obtain millions in cases where companies retaliated against their employees.

For many years, Strong Advocates has represented employees who have faced retaliation for reporting the following wrongful/illegal actions by employers:

• Discrimination
• Sexual Harassment and Assault
• Violations of health and safety regulations
• Falsification of financial documents
• Deception of shareholders and/or partners
• Tax fraud
• Unfair or deceptive business practices

Were you fired after reporting harassment or discrimination?

What Is Retaliation?

Illegal retaliation occurs when an employer takes an adverse action (such as termination, demotion, or creating a hostile work environment) against an employee who engaged in a protected activity.

Retaliation for Complaining about Discrimination or Sexual Harassment

There are two types of protected activities. First, employees are protected when they complain to their employer about unlawful conduct in the workplace. Examples would include an employee complaining to Human Resources that their boss is sexually harassing them, or an employee complaining to an Executive that they were being punished for taking a medical leave or requiring a reasonable accommodation for their disability. Second, employees are protected when they complain to a government agency such as the EEOC. Anyone who files a complaint or participates in any way in a governmental investigation cannot be retaliated against.

The law requires that, in order to prove that retaliation occurred, the employee must prove that they engaged in a protected activity. This is ideally done by demonstrating that a written complaint was made, which is why we always advise workers to make their complaints in writing.

Employees must also prove that the employer engaged in an adverse action. Adverse actions can include termination, demotion, suspension, or denying employee job benefits. Other examples include a negative performance evaluation, removing managerial duties, reassignment to another position, or verbal or physical abuse.

Retaliation for Requesting or Requiring Reasonable Accommodation for a Disability

It is also illegal for your employer to retaliate against you for requesting or requiring a reasonable accommodation. This would occur, for instance, when someone is terminated after they requested or took a medical leave of absence for a disability.

Whistleblower Retaliation

Under whistleblower legislation, your employer cannot penalize you for exposing their illegal acts or wrongdoing. Victims of retaliation can bring legal action against their employer and claim compensation for lost wages along with psychological and emotional distress. In some cases, they can also obtain punitive damages.

Qui Tam Actions for Fraud or Corruption
If your employer is committing fraud against the government for financial reasons, you may be entitled to a portion of any money that is recovered through legal action under the qui tam provisions of the federal False Claims Act and California False Claims Act (CFCA). As long as you have strong evidence to back up your claim and the extent of involved damages is great, you may attain hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of dollars as part of your reward for reporting your employer.

Contact Us for a Comprehensive Case Evaluation
Consult with Strong Advocates today to determine whether you have a viable retaliation case in California. At Strong Advocates, we strongly believe that unscrupulous companies should be brought to justice and that whistleblowers should not have their lives ruined just because they did the right thing. If you are a whistleblower who has been fired, threatened, or otherwise targeted unfairly by your employer, please don’t hesitate to call us today at (800) 870-9886 for legal counsel you can rely on.