Orange County Employment Law Blog

Workers in California who expose wrongful or unethical practices on the job may be afraid of the threat of losing their employment. This is one reason that the False Claims Act includes an anti-retaliation provision, making it illegal for companies to fire whistleblowers in response to their actions. In addition, actions like demoting, suspending or harassing employee whistleblowers are also banned by the act's prohibitions.

However, constructive discharge is not specifically mentioned as a form of prohibited retaliation in the text of the Act. A March 2018 decision in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit clarifies that constructive discharge is another form of unlawful retaliation against whistleblowers in the workplace. In the case in question, a nursing director at a health care group was responsible for assigning nurses and invoicing patient insurers. In the course of doing her work, she realized that insurance bills were being inflated, while patients were not receiving necessary nursing care.

The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California will oversee the consolidated legal complaints of a man who alleges that his employer dismissed him in an act of retaliation. The man had been involved in a business deal with Roadrunner Intermodal Services when it bought all of stock for Central Cal Transportation in 2012. He also accepted a position to work as vice president of Central Cal Transportation after Roadrunner assumed ownership. His lawsuit aims accusations of failure to pay wages, libel, slander and wrongful termination at Roadrunner.

According to court filings, the man and another business partner expected to receive as much as $4 million. His salary as vice president was supposed to be $200,000 a year. While working as vice president, he found accounting problems and raised his concerns with management at Roadrunner. By April 2015, the company had shown profits for two years, but Roadrunner had not paid the agreed-upon amounts. Roadrunner delayed fulfilling his requests for financial information.

According to news reports, a transgender man who previously worked for Google is suing the company for wrongful termination and retaliation. The man filed his lawsuit on Feb. 21 in San Francisco County Superior Court.

The man alleged that Google terminated him in November 2017 after he had worked for the company for a little more than two years. He had reportedly responded to posts on the company's internal social media platform that he felt were sexist or racist. According to court documents, the man's manager told him that he was engaging in excessive social activism.

A 2016 study conducted by an EEOC task force found that only 6 to 13 percent of those who are harassed at work file a complaint. Harassment based on gender was unlikely to be reported while just 8 percent of incidents involving unwanted touching were reported. Most victims in California and elsewhere failed to report harassment out of fear that nothing would happen after a claim was filed.

Employees may also fear that reporting an incident would lead to some form of retaliation. According to a 2003 study, 75 percent of workers who reported being mistreated at work were retaliated against in some form. Employers might show indifference toward complaints or make light of them. Despite these reactions, it is important to note that sexual harassment has been illegal under Title VII since 1986. The EEOC says that new training methods may be effective in changing how people perceive sexual harassment at work.