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- California Wrongful Termination For Breach Of Contract
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If you are not an at-will employee, it’s probable that your contract specifies you can only be dismissed for specific reasons, such as “for good cause.”
If you have such an agreement, it would be a wrongful termination for your employer to terminate your employment for any reason not stated in the agreement.
If your agreement states that you may only be let go for “reasonable cause,” then your employer’s stated reason for letting you go must match the agreement’s description of what is considered reasonable cause.
Similarly, if your employer claims your termination was based on the agreement, but the stated reason is simply a ruse for another unethical purpose, it would be wrongful termination.
Even if you don’t have a formal employment agreement with your employer, a court could find that you have an oral employment agreement or an implied employment contract.
An implied agreement may be established if your employer has a written policy stating that the employer only fires employees for “good cause.”
Breach Of The Covenant Of Good Faith And Fair Dealing
If your employer terminates you in an unjust manner, you may be able to claim wrongful termination based on their “covenant of good faith and fair dealing.”
In every deal, both parties are presumed to have accepted an “implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing.”
This simply indicates that under any transaction, the parties are presumed to promise not to engage in unfair or bad-faith conduct in order to deprive the other party of the benefits of the agreement.
This refers to an employer’s duty of loyalty in the context of a work relationship. A California employer has a basic obligation to cooperate with its employee so that the employee may do his or her tasks.
In California, failure to disclose material facts, false or misleading representations and concealment of material information are all examples of breaches of the duty of good faith and fair dealing that might result in a lawsuit for wrongful termination.
Contract Claims For Wrongful Termination
If you have a contract that states you will be employed for a certain length of time or inhibits your employer’s ability to fire you (for example, only for “good cause” or other specified reasons), your employer must keep its end of the bargain. If your employer fires you in violation of the terms of your employment contract, you could have a potential claim against him.
A written or oral agreement may be used to create an employment contract. An employment contract can also be implied by certain actions or statements made by your employer, such as a statement in an employee handbook that informs employees that they will be dismissed only for cause. (To learn more about how these contracts are formed and what they require, see Types of Employment Contracts.) You can sue for compensation, benefits, and anything else you should have earned if your employer breached any sort of employment contract. You may also use the contract as a bargaining chip to negotiate a severance package with your employer.
Discrimination Claims
Employers may not base employment decisions, such as whether or not to fire someone, on various protected characteristics. These characteristics include race, color, national origin, religion, sex (including pregnancy), age, disability, genetic information, sexual orientation, gender identity, citizenship status, family status in California, AIDS/HIV status, medical condition, political beliefs or activities, military or veteran status, or status as a victim of domestic violence, stalking, or assault.
You could have a strong wrongful termination claim if you were let go due to your membership in a protected category. If you win a discrimination lawsuit, your employer may be required to pay not just your lost wages and benefits, but also your attorney’s fees and court costs, as well as punitive damages.
Retaliation Claims
An employer may not fire someone for attempting to enforce their rights under the Employment Rights Act. For example, you may not be let go for complaining about discriminatory or harassing behavior, requesting or taking family and medical leave, taking time off to serve on a jury, filing a workers’ compensation claim, or making any other effort to address illegal wage and hour practices (such as unpaid overtime or tip-sharing arrangements). California has some of the most comprehensive protections for workers, which implies that there are several potential bases for retaliation claims. If you were let go because of a complaint or pursuing one of your legal rights, you might have a case against your employer.
The amount of damages you may receive in a retaliation case varies depending on the legislation you were relying on. Typically, though, if an employee wins his or her claim, he or she can recover not only missed income and benefits, but also legal fees, emotional distress damages, and sometimes punitive fines.
Wrongful Termination For Refusing To Engage In Illegal Activity
The principle that an employee has the right to bring a lawsuit for wrongful termination, based on their refusal to perjure oneself and other offenses as well as refusal to engage in unlawful racial discrimination against another employee, has long been acknowledged by courts. In the 1980 case of Tameny v. Atlantic Richfield Company (Arco), the California Supreme Court heard a challenge to an oil company’s jurisdiction in, among other places, the City of Los Angeles. In the lawsuit, an employee at Arco Oil Company alleged that he had been terminated after 15 years of service because he refused to participate in a scheme to fix retail gasoline prices in violation of federal and state antitrust rules.
Environmental concerns may form the basis for a wrongful termination lawsuit. For example, terminating someone for refusing to dump pollutants into the ground rather than properly disposing of them is an unlawful act.
Wrongful Termination For Performing A Statutory Obligation
Under this view, if an employee failed to fulfill a duty that would result in criminal prosecution and the employer dismissed him or her because he or she did so, the employee might sue the employer for wrongful termination.
Wrongful termination for performing a legal duty includes firing an employee who files a required report of suspected child abuse, reporting a patient’s seizures to the Department of Motor Vehicles, or informing elders in a nursing home about his or her abuse.
Wrongful Termination For Exercising A Statutory Right Or Privilege
Wrongful termination claims can be established on the grounds that an employee was dismissed in order to exercise a legal right or privilege. For example, one of these is when someone refuses an unlawful demand for money.
- discharge for filing a worker’s compensation claim;
- discharge because of union membership and activity;
- discharge for serving on a jury; and
- discharge for taking meals and rest breaks.
Wrongful Termination For Reporting A Breach Of The Law (Employee Whistleblowers)
California Labor Code section 1102.5 provides significant safeguards for workplace whistleblowers.
In addition, section 1102.5(a) of the Act prohibits employers from making, adopting, or enforcing any rule or policy that prohibits an employee from disclosing information to the government or a law enforcement agency, the employee’s supervisor, another employee who has the authority to investigate or correct violations of the law, or any public investigative agency if the employee has reasonable cause to believe that the information discloses a violation of state or federal law.
Subpart (b) of section 1102.5 mirrors subpart (a), and it is against the law to retaliate against whistleblower employees.
The case of Williams v. Wyndham Vacation Ownership shows the strength the law gives California whistleblowers who bring wrongful termination claims. We represented with co-counsel Patricia Williams, a former timeshare salesperson for Wyndham, with co-counsel. In 2016, the case was tried before a jury in San Francisco. Evidence presented shows that after Williams complained to her bosses and the Attorney General’s Office about Wyndham salespeople defrauding elderly timeshare owners, she was fired.
Two claims were submitted to the jury: (1) wrongful termination in contravention of public policy and (2) Labor Code section 1102.5 violation. The jury ruled in favor of Williams on both counts, awarding him $20 million in compensation for lost earnings, emotional distress, and punitive damages.
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Wrongful Termination California defends workers in California against wrongful termination. Please contact an employment attorney at Wrongful Termination California for a free, no-obligation case evaluation.
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