Masjedian Law Firm · Employment
Workplace Discrimination
California’s FEHA is among the strongest civil-rights laws in the country. If a protected characteristic shaped how you were treated, the law is on your side.
California’s FEHA is among the strongest civil-rights laws in the country. If a protected characteristic shaped how you were treated, the law is on your side.
Discrimination at work is rarely announced; it shows up as the promotion that never comes, the sudden write-ups after disclosure of a pregnancy or disability, the layoff list that skews old, the pay gap that never closes. California’s Fair Employment and Housing Act (FEHA) prohibits all of it — and applies to employers with as few as five employees.
Protected characteristics under FEHA. Race and color, national origin and ancestry, sex, gender, gender identity and expression, sexual orientation, pregnancy, religion, age (40 and over), physical and mental disability, medical condition, genetic information, marital status, and military or veteran status. Adverse action — firing, demotion, pay disparity, failure to promote or hire, harassment — taken because of any of these is unlawful.
Disability and pregnancy carry extra rights. Employers must engage in a good-faith interactive process and provide reasonable accommodation for disability, pregnancy, and related conditions. Refusing to accommodate, or punishing the request, is its own violation independent of any firing.
Proving it. Direct statements are rare; cases are built on comparators, statistics, timing, pretext (a stated reason that doesn’t hold), documents, and witnesses. Preserve reviews, emails, texts, job postings, and names now — access to evidence often ends the day you leave.
Remedies. Lost pay and benefits, front pay, emotional distress damages, punitive damages, and FEHA’s fee-shifting — the employer pays your attorney’s fees when you prevail. Claims start with a Civil Rights Department filing (generally within three years) followed by a right-to-sue lawsuit.
Adverse treatment — termination, demotion, unequal pay, failure to hire or promote, harassment — because of a protected characteristic like race, sex, age over 40, disability, pregnancy, religion, or sexual orientation. FEHA covers employers with five or more employees.
Through circumstantial evidence: better treatment of similarly situated colleagues outside your protected class, suspicious timing, shifting justifications, statistical patterns, and documents contradicting the employer’s story. Most successful cases are built this way.
Yes. FEHA independently requires reasonable accommodation and a good-faith interactive process. Denying accommodation, or retaliating against the request, is actionable even without a termination.
Generally three years to file with California’s Civil Rights Department, then one year from a right-to-sue notice to file in court. Earlier is always stronger — evidence and witnesses fade.
Back pay, front pay, lost benefits, emotional distress damages, punitive damages in egregious cases, and attorney’s fees under FEHA’s fee-shifting provision.
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