Category: employment law

When you got your job, you probably did not care how your employment status was classified. However, as you are discovering now, whether or not you are classified as an “independent contractor” or an employee can make a huge difference over the course of the work.

Legally, most workers are either independent contractors or employees. Independent contractors are workers who are not classified as employees. In some cases, it can be tough to tell whether a worker is an independent contractor or an employee. The IRS has tests to determine whether or not a worker is an independent contractor or an employee, including: whether the worker receives a steady paycheck (probably an employee) or receives pay for hours worked or for a job completed (independent contractor), who supplies the materials and tools, who sets the work schedule, whether the work is temporary or permanent, and who controls the way the work is done. In general, the more control the employer has over the terms of the work, the more likely a worker is to be an employee.

It’s critical to determine whether or not a worker is an independent contractor or an employee for many reasons. Probably the biggest reason is for tax purposes. If a worker is an employee, the employer must pay a number of taxes on behalf of the employee. If a worker is an independent contractor, the worker is responsible for those taxes.

In addition to the tax issues, there are other legal differences between employees and independent contractors. Employees may receive paid time off, overtime, and other benefits, which independent contractors do not receive. Also, employees are normally covered by workers’ compensation, and independent contractors are not.

It’s normally beneficial for workers to be classified as employees, but it is beneficial for employers to classify workers as independent contractors. If you believe that you have been incorrectly classified as an independent contractor, you should speak with an attorney. If you’re in Los Angeles, call me, Conal Doyle, employment attorney, at 310-385-0567. I can help. Call today to learn more or to schedule a free consultation.

I’m sorry to hear about your disability. A sudden disability can take a huge emotional toll on a person, and a bad employment situation can make the situation even worse.

The good news is that you have legal rights under both federal law and California law. Disability discrimination is illegal. Disability discrimination occurs when a person treats a qualified person with a disability who is an employee or a job applicant unfavorably because he or she has a disability or a history of a disability. Under federal law, the Americans with Disabilities Act prohibits disability discrimination in employment. In California, the claims are covered by the Fair Employment and Housing Act.

In order to be considered as disabled, a person must have one of three conditions: a physical or mental condition that impacts a major life activity, a history of a disability, or a physical or mental impairment that is not transitory and minor. A person must be considered medically disabled in order to be provided protections under disability discrimination laws.

Disability discrimination laws require an employer to provide reasonable accommodation to an employee or a job applicant with a disability. A reasonable accommodation is any change in the job description or employment conditions to help a person with a disability. An example may be allowing an employee to sit at a cash register rather than stand, or to make some small modifications to accommodate a wheelchair. However, if an accommodation would cause an undue hardship to the employer, the employer does not have to provide the accommodation.

If you believe that your employer is illegally refusing to accommodate your disability in Los Angeles, you should speak with an attorney. Call me, Conal Doyle, Los Angeles disability discrimination attorney, at 310-385-0567. We can help. Call my team today to learn more or to schedule a free consultation.

It can be confusing to employees in California about whether they are entitled to vacation time and what happens when they don’t use it while they are employed. Under California law, employers are not required to pay their employees for any vacation time. If they do choose to offer vacation days, under federal and state law they are not required to pay their employees for those days.

However, most employers do choose to offer their employees paid vacation time in order to attract good workers and to give employees a chance to recuperate from work. Many employers offer either a set number of days per year or they base vacation time on the number of days or hours the employee works. Under California law, if an employer has agreed to provide an employee with vacation time, it is illegal to fail to pay it. In fact, the employer can face criminal charges for failing to pay for vacation time.

It is critical that when you leave a job you are compensated for your time at work. That includes any vacation benefits to which you are legally entitled. If you quit or you are fired, you are owed pay for all the paid vacation time you have accumulated. Your employer is not allowed to take away the vacation time you have earned. However, there may be limits on the maximum amount of vacation time you can accumulate.

If you believe that you have not been paid for all of your accrued vacation time in Los Angeles, you should speak with an attorney. Call me, Conal Doyle, Los Angeles employment attorney, at 310-385-0567. I can help. Call today to learn more or to schedule a free consultation on your case.

I’m sorry to hear about the discrimination. Yes, you may be able to sue your employer. Under federal law, discrimination based on ethnicity is illegal. You should speak with an employment attorney about your legal options.

Legally, “ethnicity” means ethnic traits, backgrounds, linguistic traits, allegiances on certain groups, or associations with certain groups. Some people have negative feelings about members of some ethnic groups. If those feelings lead to discrimination in the workplace, the person is violating both state and federal law.

Under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which is a federal law, discrimination in employment based on national origin, race, color, and sex, which includes ethnicity, is illegal. Under California law, discrimination in the workplace is also illegal based on race, color, religion, ancestry, national origin, and more. Ethnicity discrimination is illegal in all areas of employment, including compensation, benefits, training, firing, hiring, advancement, retaliation, harassment, and more.

There are some situations in which a person’s ethnicity can prohibit a person from performing a particular job. However, reasonable accommodations must be allowed. Reasonable accommodations could include reasonable adjustments, such as flexible hours, changing workplace policies or procedures, and more.

If you believe that you have been discriminated against at work in Los Angeles because of your ethnicity, you should speak with an attorney. Call me, Conal Doyle, Los Angeles employment attorney, at 310-385-0567. Call today to learn more or to schedule a free consultation.

Employee handbooks can be critical for companies. Employee handbooks set forth rules and guidelines for employees and managers in their relationships with each other and customers. Employees normally appreciate consistent policies and procedures in place. Handbooks can help keep confusion about the rules to a minimum.

Employee handbooks also benefit employees by giving them standards of conduct, and information about policies that apply to them. Some standard topics that are covered in employee handbooks include working hours, employee benefits, anti-discrimination policies, the mission of the company, standards of conduct, confidentiality, discipline, and more.

Employees have the right to know what to expect from their workplace. In some cases, employee handbooks are not followed. A disciplinary policy may be listed, but an employer may pick and choose when the policy is followed and when it is ignored. A handbook may list benefits, but the employer may choose not to offer those benefits to the employee. The employee handbook may make a guarantee of future employment so long as an employee is abiding by the rules listed in the handbook, but then an employer may fire an employee who is following the rules.

If you are an employee and your employee handbook is not being followed, you should speak with management to get clarification. If you were terminated or other actions were taken against you in direct contradiction to which is written in the handbook, you should speak with an attorney. The employee handbook may constitute an employment contract under certain situations.

Call me, Conal Doyle, Los Angeles employment attorney, at 310-385-0567 if you have questions about your employee handbook and you believe it has not been followed. Call today to learn more or to schedule a free consultation.

It can be very frustrating when an employee is torn between caring for family members and working. When a family member is ill, one of the employee’s first thoughts is often how to take time off work without losing the job. Fortunately, both federal law and California law give employees the right to take time off work in certain situations, and the employer must allow the individual to return to work in those cases. The California law is called the California Family Rights Act (CFRA) and the federal law is the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA). Both are similar but have some differences.

Both laws only apply to covered employers, which in general means employers with 50 or more employees. Under both laws, eligible employees can take up to 12 weeks of paid or unpaid leave to care for an immediate family member with a serious health problem. In order to be eligible for the leave, an employee must have been employed by the employer for at least 12 months on the day the leave is set to start. Also, the employee must have worked at least 1,250 hours during the previous 12-month period.

Under both laws, if an employee wants to take time off to care for a sick family member, that family member must be a child, parent, or spouse. The employee is not required to be paid for the time off, but the employer may ask that the employee first take paid time off before using the leave. If an employee chooses to use the leave available, the employee must be restored to the same position upon returning, and the employer must continue providing benefits during the leave, although the employee may be required to pay for those benefits.

If your company is not offering you time off to care for a sick family member, and you believe that you are entitled to that time off, you should speak with an employment attorney. If you are in Los Angeles, call me, Conal Doyle, Los Angeles employment attorney at 310-385-0567. I can help. Call today to learn more or to schedule a free consultation on your case.

I am sorry to hear about your discrimination. Despite all the advancements that have been made legally in protecting the rights of gays and lesbians, discrimination still occurs. Sometimes that discrimination occurs in the workplace, which is illegal.

Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 makes discrimination based on certain characteristics, including sex, illegal. In 2011 and 2012, the EEOC ruled that job discrimination against lesbians, gays, bisexuals, and transgendered individuals was discrimination based on sex and is therefore illegal. In addition to protections under federal law, state law in California also outlaws harassment and discrimination in employment based on sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, and gender expression.

Sexual orientation discrimination occurs when someone is treated differently based on his or her sexual orientation or perceived sexual orientation. It does not matter if the perception of your sexual orientation is correct or incorrect. You can also have a potential claim if you were harassed at work because of your sexual orientation.

Some examples of sexual orientation discrimination include not being hired because of your sexual orientation, being fired because of your sexual orientation, being denied a promotion due to your sexual orientation, being kept away from customers or clients because of your sexual orientation, or being treated differently after co-workers find out about your sexual orientation. In all of those situations, you may be able to bring a claim under federal or state law.

If you have experienced discrimination in the workplace in Los Angeles because of your sexual orientation or perceived sexual orientation, you should speak with an attorney. Call me, Conal Doyle, Los Angeles employment law attorney, at 310-385-0567. I can help. Call today to learn more or to schedule your free consultation.

It is absolutely not legal to fire someone in Los Angeles because they are pregnant or are planning to become pregnant. Under both federal and California law, pregnant women are protected from discrimination in the workplace. This means that an employer cannot fire, refuse to hire, demote, or fail to accommodate a woman because she is pregnant or is planning to become pregnant.

In spite of these protections offered by law, women face discrimination in the workplace due to pregnancy regularly in California and in the U.S. Some common examples of pregnancy discrimination include refusing to hire a pregnant woman, refusing to promote a woman because she is pregnant or may become pregnant, refusing to hire women of a certain age because they may become pregnant, or refusing to allow pregnant women to take time off for doctor’s appointments.

In addition, federal and state law require employers to offer women maternity leave. If you are eligible for maternity leave under federal and state law, normally employers must allow women to have 12 weeks of unpaid leave following the birth of adoption of a child. Employers must continue offering employment benefits, such as health insurance, although employees are required to continue paying the premiums. At the end of maternity leave, an employer must restore the employee to the original job or an equivalent job.

In California, women who are discriminated against because of pregnant have a limited amount of time in which to pursue a claim. If you believe that you have been discriminated against in the workplace because of a pregnancy, call Los Angeles employment law attorney Conal Doyle at 310-385-0567. I can help. Call today to learn more or to schedule a free consultation on your case.

I’m sorry to hear about your issue at work. Under state and federal law, treating someone differently in the workplace because of his or her religion is illegal. In California, such discrimination is illegal under the Fair Employment and Housing Act. Under federal law, Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 makes religious discrimination at work illegal.

Specifically, two types of behavior are illegal in the workplace when it comes to an employee’s religion. First, it is illegal to discriminate against someone because of their religion when it comes to any aspect of employment, including hiring, firing, pay, job assignments, benefits, or any other term of employment. Second, it is illegal to harass someone in the workplace because of their religion.

In your situation, it is possible that you are facing illegal harassment at work. Normally, harassment includes offensive remarks about a person’s religion. However, if the comments are simple teasing and they do not occur very often, they may not be illegal. If the harassment is so serious or happens so often that it creates a hostile work environment, it’s illegal and the victim can sue.

In your situation, you should speak with a Los Angeles employment attorney who can help advise you on the best course of action to take. Call me, Conal Doyle, Los Angeles religious discrimination attorney, at 310-385-0567. I can help. Call today to learn more or to schedule a free consultation on your case.

Some employers choose to take advantage of their employees. This can happen when the employees are vulnerable, such as if they are in the country illegally or do not have a firm grasp of English. Employers may believe that their employees do not know what their legal rights are or will not seek help in standing up for their legal rights.

One way some employers take advantage of their employees is by refusing to pay them all the money they are owed. Employers may refuse to pay employees for their sick time, overtime, regular wages, commissions or bonuses earned, breaks, or other moneys owed. When that happens, employees should speak with an attorney. An attorney can be invaluable in the fight to help workers protect their legal rights. Attorneys can also inform employers that they are violating their employees’ legal rights.

There are some common ways that employers in Los Angeles may fail to properly compensate their employees. They may not pay workers for all hours worked or a proper amount for overtime. They may not reimburse employees for expenses that were legitimately reimburseable. Workers may not be given any accrued vacation pay or may not be allowed to carry it over into another year. Workers may not be given breaks for meals or rest. If a worker leaves a job, the worker may not be paid for unused vacation days or any wages that are owed.

Many employers misclassify their employees as independent contractors or managers so that they are exempt from some benefits and overtime to which they are entitled. That behavior is illegal, and those employees may be entitled to back pay for their overtime and benefits.

If you are an employee in Los Angeles and you feel that your boss has failed to properly pay you for your wages, overtime, benefits, or more, call me, Conal Doyle, Los Angeles employment attorney at 310-385-0567. I can help.