ATTORNEY NEWSLETTER
Expanding Protections Against Employer Retaliation
Extending Time To Bring Suit
Attorneys’ Fees Now Recoverable
California labor law has long protected individuals from retaliation by the employers for blowing the whistle on wrongful conduct by the employer. See, e.g., Cal. Lab. Code §§ 98.6 and 1102.5; Cal. Gov’t Code § 12653. If an employee decides to bring an action on behalf of the State for such fraud in a suit known as a qui tam under the California False Claims Act (Cal. Gov’t Code § 12650 et seq.), that employee is protected against retaliation by his employer. Recent legislation, signed into law by Governor Newsum, provides an enhanced remedy for employees who are wrongfully terminated for blowing the whistle on fraud. The litigators at Evans Law Firm, Inc. represent whistleblowers both qui tam cases and in suits against their employers for wrongful termination. If you have credible information of fraud against the State of California call our whistleblower litigators today at (415)441-8669.
California Labor Code Protections Against Employer Retaliation
Section 1102.5 of the California Labor Code protects employees against retaliation for disclosing either internally or to a government agency information of “a violation of state or federal statute, or a violation of or noncompliance with a local, state, or federal rule or regulation, regardless of whether disclosing the information is part of the employee’s job duties.” Cal. Lab. Code § 1102.5(b). The new law would add to Section 1102.5 an authorization for any court “to award reasonable attorney’s fees to a plaintiff who brings a successful action for a violation of these provisions.” The law also extends the statute of limitations for certain claims that must be brought to the Labor Commission itself for violations of other provisions of the labor law (i.e., not whistleblower cases).
Attorney’s Fees For Successful Plaintiffs
The additional remedy of attorneys’ fees under Section 1102.5 is an important enhancement of the law. Attorney’s fees are also available to whistleblowers against any retaliatory employer under the California False Claims Act. Cal. Gov’t Code § 12653(b). Now, the new law adds to the arsenal of available remedies for whistleblower when their employer also violates the anti-retaliation protections of the Labor Code. Suing in qui tams on behalf of the State of California, individual whistleblowers have recovered hundreds of millions of dollars of wrongfully obtained public funds. Any expansion of protections for those individuals from retaliation yields a benefit to all Californians.
Contact Us
If you have credible information of false claims against the State of California contact Ingrid M. Evans and the other California whistleblower and false claims attorneys at Evans Law Firm at (415) 441-8669, or by email at <a href=”mailto:info@evanslaw.com”>info@evanslaw.com</a>. Ingrid and our other whistleblower attorneys also handle qui tam cases before the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) regarding tax avoidance schemes and before the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) in securities and investment fraud cases and in cases brought under the Financial Institutions Reform, Recovery and Enforcement Act of 1989 (“FIRREA”) for bank fraud.
