When an employer or supervisor requires an employee to engage in sex to keep their job or receive some job benefit like a raise or promotion, that’s quid pro quo harassment. California’s FEHA law (Fair Employment and Housing Act) prohibits quid pro harassment and permits the employee to sue both the employer and the harasser.

Sometimes an employer has some policy or practice that appears to be fair to everyone but, in the real world, has negative consequences for certain employees only. If the employees who suffer are members of a protected class, then the policy is said to have a disparate impact and it is illegal.

For example, if

Sometimes an employer knows it is wrong to fire an employee, so the employer makes the employee so miserable that the employee has no other choice but to quit. In those cases, the employer has constructively terminated the employee. The law treats employees who have been constructively terminated as though they had been fired

A hostile work environment is one in which the harassment has become so frequent or horrible that the victim’s working conditions are changed for the worse. For there to be a hostile work environment, the harassment has to be aimed at a protected class.

For example, if a supervisor at a tech company frequently makes

An employee is wrongfully terminated if he or she is fired for an illegal reason. The reason may be illegal because it violates an established law or because the firing goes against a public policy.

A firing may constitute a wrongful termination because it violates the law prohibiting discrimination based on protected classes. Even if

Disparate treatment means “different treatment.” Disparate treatment is illegal when it is aimed at an employee or independent contractor because of their membership in a protected class.

Most often, illegal disparate treatment results in an employee not getting a raise, being passed over for a promotion, being assigned an undesirable shift or job duties, or

It depends. Does your employer retain the right to control the how you perform your work? If yes, then you are an employee. If no, than you are an independent contractor. If maybe, then the Court will consider these additional questions:

  • Are you engaged in a distinct business?
  • Is your job usually done with or without

 Yes! The law provides greater protection for an employee than an independent contractor. Anti-discrimination, anti-retaliation and rest break laws protect employees not independent contractors. State agencies such as the Division of Labor may enforce the laws for employees; but independent contractors must seek remedies from the Court under contract law.