Located northwest of Los Angeles, Ventura is a charming coastal city known for known for its beaches, surfing spots, Mission San Buenaventura, and a harbor from which boats depart to take visitors to the Channel Islands National Park, which is home to various wildlife. The western part of the city stretches along a river. As of the 2020 census, the population of the city is 110,763. Major employers there include the county, the school district, the superior court, the city of San Buenaventura, Target, Kaiser, Patagonia Works, Employer’s Depot, and Community Memorial Hospital. If you are an employee who was discriminated against due to a protected trait or retaliated against for reporting your employer’s wrongdoing, the experienced Ventura employment law lawyers of Calderone Law Firm may be able to represent you in a lawsuit for damages against your employer.
Fight Employment DiscriminationMany people are unsure whether they have been discriminated against by an employer. Not all forms of unfair treatment constitute actionable discrimination. In the broadest terms, you have suffered discrimination if your employer or prospective employer has taken a negative action against you based on a characteristic protected by federal, state, or local laws. For example, if you were denied a job because of your race national origin, or religion, you may have a claim under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act—but only so long as your employer has at least 5 employees. Your best legal option may be to pursue damages under the California Fair Employment and Housing Act (FEHA). This law applies if your Ventura employer has at least five employees, and it protects a wide range of characteristics, many more than federal laws do. However, if you are subject to sexual harassment on the job, you should be aware that your employer may be liable even if you are the only employee.
Ventura Representation for WhistleblowersWhistleblowers are those who notify the proper law enforcement agency, governmental agency, or another authority figure about workplace misconduct or violations. For instance, a whistleblower might report a hospital for improperly charging governmental programs for services like Medi-Cal or Medicare. You may rightly worry that your employer will retaliate against you for reporting wrongdoing. However, both California state law and federal laws prohibit retaliation against workplace whistleblowers when the whistleblower has reasonable cause to believe the employer has committed a federal or state legal violation, whether of a statute or regulation. Additionally, employees who report unsafe work practices in good faith are protected. For example, if you are a construction worker who refuses to perform certain operations due to knowledge that your employer’s equipment is faulty, you may be able to recover damages, in the event that your employer retaliates against you.
Labor Law ViolationsThe law sets forth different ways workers may be classified. As a worker, you may be an independent contractor or gig worker, an exempt employee, or a nonexempt employee. In most cases, the greatest legal protection accrues to nonexempt employees. Roughly put, nonexempt employees are those that have less control over how they do their job and where they do their work; secretaries and restaurant servers are usually nonexempt employees, for instance. If you are a nonexempt employee, your employer must pay you a minimum wage and pay you overtime when appropriate. Overtime is calculated at 1.5 times your regular rate of pay, if you’ve worked over 8 hours in a workday, and it is calculated at double time, if you work over 12 hours in a single day. However, your employer may misclassify you as an exempt employee or independent contractor because of ignorance of the law or to avoid its mandates for employee protections.
Wage and hour lawsuits may not involve significant damages, particularly if the issue is relatively minor, such as an employer asking an employee not to count a couple hours spent training. In those types of cases, when other employers have also faced the same or similar labor law violation, it may be appropriate to pursue a class action lawsuit by joining together with similarly aggrieved employees to retain an experienced class action attorney.
Consult the Experienced Ventura Attorneys of Calderone Law FirmVincent Calderone and our trustworthy Ventura employment lawyers at Calderone Law Firm are dedicated to providing clients with knowledgeable and tenacious legal representation in cases involving labor law violations, discrimination, retaliation, whistleblowing, or harassment. Complete our online form or call us at (424) 348-8290 for a free consultation.