September 27th, 2008 
James Peters A few days ago I happened upon an article about Littler Mendelson, P.C. They are a large employment law defense firm and have offices in every major metropolitan area of California. I would bet that if I looked at all of the cases our firm has handled over the years, Littler is the firm we are most often pitted against.
Except for a… Continue reading
May 17th, 2008 James Peters This is our third post in our series on “family status” discrimination. The last post dealt with examples of “moral stereotyping” where an employer’s belief on what women should do motivates their discrimination. This post deals with what I call “assumption” stereotyping, which deals with instances where an employer is motivated by their beliefs about what women will do, given their family status…
In these situations, the employer’s concerns Continue reading
May 3rd, 2008 James Peters This is my second post in our multi-part series on “family status” discrimination, which is becoming more and more common under both federal and state law.
There are many ways family status discrimination can happen in the workplace, some of which are very subtle and difficult to prove. Other types are not subtle at all, such as the topic of today’s post, which is what I call “Moral Stereotyping”… Continue reading
April 16th, 2008 James Peters One employment law claim that has been quickly becoming more popular these days is “family status discrimination”. That is, discriminating against someone based on their familial obligations or simply because they have a family in the first place.
Widespread use of this claim is so recent that it does not even have a consistent name in legal circles. We call it “family status discrimination”, but others call it “family… Continue reading
January 25th, 2008 James Peters A timely study by the Institute for Corporate Productivity (I4CP) that was released on Tuesday finds that the vast majority of corporations have some sort of formal anti-discrimination policy.
However, failure to adequately communicate such policies is a frequent problem, where only 80% of those companies rate anti-discrimination training “either somewhat or very important”.
This study is certainly timely in the debate over Tribune company’s hopelessly… Continue reading
January 12th, 2008 James Peters Let me first say that I rarely disagree with decisions by California state or federal appellate courts (at least those I am not personally involved in and therefore biased against). However, I occasionally come across a case where I just think the court got it wrong. In Mokler v. County of Orange, et.al. (Cal.App.Dist.4 11/26/2007), No. G036029, a former Orange County employee sued under several different claims, including sexual… Continue reading
March 5th, 2007 James Peters Employers could avoid a LOT of lawsuits if they would just follow the “No Bad Apples Rule”, which has its origins in a book written by Dr. Robert Sutton called “The No Asshole Rule: Building a Civilized Workplace and Surviving One That Isn’t”. I agree with Dr. Sutton that “bad apples” probably is not a strong enough word… Continue reading
January 14th, 2007 James Peters One of my co-workers has asked me to testify for in her discrimination case against our employer. I want to help, but I am afraid that my employer will retaliate against me if I help her.
A: Both state and federal discrimination laws prohibit retaliation by employers against employees for participating in an investigation or prosecution of an employment discrimination or harassment… Continue reading
January 5th, 2007 James Peters My boss is a real jerk. She harasses me for no good reason, calls me names and belittles me in front of other employees. Today I finally told her not to treat me like that anymore, because it interferes with my work and it is unprofessional. She fired me on the spot for complaining. Please tell me this is not legal in California!… Continue reading
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