SERVICES
WHAT WE OFFER TO YOU
Peggy Farrell is a solo practitioner with 25 years of experience fighting to enforce the civil rights of employees who have experienced discrimination, harassment, retaliation or the theft of their wages.
- Employment Discrimination/Retaliation
- Medical Leave/Failure to Accommodate
- Sexual Harassment/Stalking/Domestic Abuse
- Retaliation & Wrongful Termination/Whistleblower Actions
- Discrimination by Public Entity Employers
Employment Discrimination/ Retaliation
Employment discrimination involves treating someone differently based in whole or part on the employee’s race/color, national origin (including language) disability (including pregnancy and HIV/AIDS) age, sex/gender (including gender identity/expression and pregnancy) transgender or sexual orientation.
Medical Leave/Failure to Accommodate
A form of disability discrimination, California employers are required to provide a reasonable accommodation to an employee for a known physical or mental disability. The type of accommodation afforded to covered employees varies extensively and may range from for example, granting light duty, telecommuting, providing assistance or a finite leave of absence.
Sexual Harassment/Stalking/Domestic Abuse
California has some of the strongest laws in the nation against sexual harassment in the workplace, and yet sexual harassment is on the rise. Why? Despite the profound increase in consciousness through the “MeToo” Movement, employers continue to allow, permit and ratify the sexual misconduct of their employees who are most often members of management. We have learned to speak out, but because employers are not willing to stop it, we must also take legal action. The discussion does not end with sexual harassment; according to the Centers for Disease Control’s survey report, 7.5 million Americans were victims of stalking in 2011. This number is an astounding especially considering the conservative definition of “stalking” or “abuse” as a basis for the findings. Employees who were retaliated against and/or terminated because they were stalked or abused had no recourse against their employer until 2013 when the Labor Code was amended to “prohibit an employer from firing or discriminating against an employee based on his or her known status as a victim of domestic violence, sexual assault, or stalking,” In addition, employers must now provide employee victims the right to take time off from work to protect themselves and their families.
Retaliation and Wrongful Termination/Whistleblower Actions
Retaliation involves cause and effect based in large part on the proximity in timing between the protected act and the employer’s decision to terminate, demote or other adverse employment action. For example, if an employee reported sexual harassment on Monday, April 1st and was terminated a week later on April 8th, the lack of an intervening act between the protected reporting activity and the termination can establish a claim for retaliation. There are several different ways in which an employer can retaliate against an employee, however, the most common is termination or demotion.
Discrimination by Public Entity Employers
Employees of public entities have the same civil rights as employees of private employers. However, public employees are often unable to maneuver through their employer’s maze of administrative hurdles to pursue a claim for discrimination, harassment or retaliation. Many public employers go so far as to hide information regarding how to file a claim with the public entity in hopes that the employee will miss the deadline or file with the wrong entity. Public entities are held to a higher standard because they exist only because of taxpayer dollars. However, holding public entity employers responsible for unlawful acts often takes legal action. If you are a public entity employee and believe you have been discriminated against, harassed or retaliated against in violation of law, please contact us.