Newport Beach Employment Lawyers Representing Firefighters

What types of employment claims do you handle in Newport Beach?

Firefighters risk disfiguring burns, respiratory illnesses, falling objects, and death. They deserve to be compensated for their work and deserve to be judged based on their firefighting skills and not on their personal identity characteristics.

Former clients, including many firefighters, and the California legal community trust our Newport Beach employment lawyers to represent them in the following types of claims:

• Claims based on your membership in a protected class, including:
  • Discrimination claims
  • Harassment claims
• Retaliation claims, including:
  • Retaliation for filing a discrimination or harassment claim
  • Retaliation for filing for asserting your right to any type of employment benefit
  • Retaliating for supporting another worker’s employment claim
• Financial compensation, including:
  • Wage and hour pay and benefits
  • Executive compensation benefits, including salary, insurance, severance pay, and retirement benefits
• Qui tam/whistleblower claims for disclosing your employer’s fraudulent activity
• Wrongful termination claims

What conduct justifies filing a discrimination claim in Newport Beach?

Firefighters and other employees who work for the Newport Beach Fire Department have the right to file an employment discrimination claim, based on federal discrimination laws and California’s discrimination law, if they are members of a “protected class” and the fire department “adversely affects their employment.” Generally, independent contractors, volunteers, and unpaid interns can also file discrimination claims if they meet the same protected class and adverse employment requirements.

Protected class

The California Fair Housing and Employment Act defines the following identity characteristics as protected classes:

• Age (40 and older)
• Ancestry or national origin
• Physical or mental disability
• Gender identity or gender expression
• Genetic information
• Marital status
• Medical condition
• Race or color
• Religion or creed
• Sex or gender (including pregnancy, childbirth, breastfeeding, or related medical conditions)
• Sexual orientation
• Veteran or military status

Some of the federal discrimination laws that protect firefighters from discrimination include Title VII of the U.S. Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Americans with Disabilities Act.

Adverse employment conditions

At McNicholas & McNicholas, LLP, we have the skills and experience to show that fired departments adversely affected your employment in one or more of the following ways:

• Terminating your employment
• Denying you a promotion, pay raise, or other work benefits that you deserve
• Failing to provide reasonable workplace accommodations if you have a disability or you are pregnant
• Harassing you
• Not reviewing your job application
• Not providing the training and education you need
• Suspending you

What conduct justifies filing a harassment claim in Newport Beach?

Firefighters rely on each other. Harassment of another worker is not just intolerable. It can be extremely dangerous. Our Newport Beach employment lawyers file harassment claims when fire departments harass workers who are members of a protected class.

The California Fair Housing and Employment Act (CFEHA) prohibits harassment of employees, contractors, volunteers, and others by any person who works for the fire department or has access to the fire department, including supervisors and coworkers.

Employers are generally liable for harassment if they reasonably should have known about the harassment and failed to take steps to stop it. Employers of large fire departments can also be held liable for harassment if they fail to develop and implement policies and procedures to educate firefighters about their employment harassment rights.

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) also protects firefighters from harassment.

At McNicholas & McNicholas, LLP, we file harassment claims when either of the following types of harassment occur:

Hostile workplace harassment

Fire departments create a hostile work environment if they allow verbal communications or physical conduct that makes working intimidating, offensive, abusive, or prevents you from doing your job. Verbal communications include conversations, jokes, emails, messages, images, and other communications that a reasonable person would find offensive. Physical conduct includes impeding your movement and any unwanted physical contact.

Sexual harassment that creates a hostile workplace includes comments, gestures, and communications of a sexual nature, leering, sexual images and Internet links, sexual advances, and physical conduct of a sexual nature.

Firefighters in Newport Beach can file a harassment claim if someone else is the focus of the harassment, provided they reasonably find the harassment offensive.

Quid pro quo harassment

This type of harassment occurs when someone who can affect your employment and/or the type of work you do conditions your employment/work on sexual advances or sexual favors.

Can firefighters hold employers liable if the employer retaliates against a worker who asserts their rights?

You have the right to file retaliation complaints, participate in investigations, and support other workers when your fire department discriminates, harasses you, or tries to punish you because you assert any legal right.

Our Newport Beach, California employment lawyers represent firefighters when employers retaliate when a firefighter (or any fire department worker):

• Files a discrimination or harassment claim.
• Requests workers’ compensation benefits for an injury or illness.
• File a qui tam/whistleblower claim for reporting fire department fraud.
• Request family medical leave.
• Request reasonable workplace accommodations if you have a disability or if you are pregnant.
• Support another worker’s employment claim.

What employment laws protect firefighters in Newport Beach?

Your employment rights generally depend on federal laws, California laws, Orange County regulations, collective bargaining contracts, executive compensation agreements, and other written contracts.

At McNicholas & McNicholas, LLP, we review your agreements and assert your legal rights as set forth in the following laws:

California employment laws:

• The California Fair Employment and Housing Act(FEHA)
• The California False Claims Act
• The California Family Rights Act

Federal employment laws:

• Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964
• The Age Discrimination in Employment Act(ADEA)
• The Americans with Disabilities Act(ADA) and the Rehabilitation Act of 1973
• The Equal Pay Act of 1963
• The Family Medical Leave Act or the California Family Rights Act
• The Federal False Claims Act
• The Pregnancy Discrimination Actand the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act
• The Trauma Treatment Act
• The Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act

We assert these laws and contracts before the following agencies and courts:

• The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC)
• The California Civil Rights Department (CCRD)
• The Superior Court of Orange County
• The Southern Division of the Central District of California

What damages are awarded when fired departments violate the rights of firefighters in California?

At McNicholas & McNicholas, LLP, we fight aggressively to place you in the same position as if your employee rights had not been violated. Our Newport Beach lawyers who represent firefighters demand compensation for the following damages and remedies (depending on your type of employment claim):

• Income losses (past and future), including wages, salary, bonuses, and overtime
• Health insurance and other work benefits
• Severance pay, stock options, retirement benefits, and other forms of executive compensation
• Loss of seniority
• Emotional suffering and any damage to your reputation
• Statutory damages
• Attorney fees, court costs, and interest
• Punitive damages for egregious conduct

Court orders to reinstate your employment, promote you, provide reasonable workplace accommodations for those in need, and other remedies