Passed over, written up, or pushed out for who you are?

Discrimination is an employment decision made because of who you are rather than how you work. Under the Fair Employment and Housing Act (Government Code §12940), it is unlawful for an employer to refuse to hire, to fire, or to set different terms and conditions of employment because of a protected class.

Protected class: a characteristic the law shields from being used against you in an employment decision. More terms in the glossary.

Those characteristics include race, color, national origin, ancestry, religion and religious creed, sex and gender (including pregnancy, childbirth, breastfeeding, and related medical conditions), gender identity and gender expression, sexual orientation, age 40 and over, physical or mental disability, medical condition, genetic information, reproductive health decision-making, marital status, and military and veteran status. FEHA also protects you when the employer perceives you to have one of these characteristics, or acts against you because of your association with someone who does.

FEHA’s discrimination provisions generally apply to employers with five or more employees. Its harassment provisions reach employers of any size.

The law also requires an adverse employment action. Termination, demotion, pay cuts, and denied promotions qualify. A single rude comment usually does not, though comments are often powerful evidence of why a decision was made.

Adverse employment action: a decision that materially affects the terms, conditions, or privileges of your job. More terms in the glossary.

Two patterns recur: an employer treating you worse than comparable employees outside your protected class, or a neutral-looking policy that falls hardest on one group.

Your reviews were strong until you told your manager you were pregnant. The next cycle produced the first “needs improvement” of your career.

The promotion went to someone with less experience, after a director mentioned wanting “new energy.” You are the oldest person in the department.

You disclosed a disability, asked for a modest accommodation, and were moved to a role with fewer hours. No one explained why.

The same conduct earns you a warning and your colleague a conversation, and the difference tracks race or national origin.

The layoff list included the two employees who had recently taken medical leave, and no one else.

None of these is proof by itself. Each is the kind of pattern that documents, comparisons, and testimony can turn into a case.

Most California discrimination claims must go through the state agency before court.

Deadlines depend on the facts of your situation. Do not rely on this page to calculate yours.

Almost no one has a document that says the quiet part. Cases are built from ordinary records:

1. A timeline of decisions, dates, and who made them.
2. Reviews from before and after the employer learned about your pregnancy, diagnosis, age, or complaint.
3. Comparators: employees outside your protected class who did the same thing and were treated differently.
4. The employer’s shifting explanations across HR, the unemployment filing, and litigation.
5. Emails and messages you already have lawful access to, plus the names of anyone who heard the comments.

Many people find it helps to put the complaint in writing, even a short email to HR, because it fixes the date and forces a response.

Requesting an immediate right-to-sue notice starts a one-year clock. That, and any release put in front of you, are both worth a conversation before rather than after.

Resigning is rarely the first move worth making, and posting about the dispute is rarely worth making at all.

FEHA does not cap compensatory damages. What a case can produce still depends on the facts, and may include:

• Lost wages and benefits, past and future
• Emotional distress
• Punitive damages, where clear and convincing evidence shows malice, oppression, or fraud by an officer, director, or managing agent (Civil Code §3294)
• Attorney’s fees and costs for a prevailing employee
• Non-monetary relief, such as a policy change or a corrected personnel file

Taylor has spent nearly a decade in litigation, employee-side, and he was selected to the Super Lawyers® Rising Stars list, Employment Litigation – Plaintiff, 2025–2027.

While at Rizio Lipinsky Heiting, PC, he obtained a $41,098,250 verdict, as trial counsel with Rizio Lipinsky. Because we are his alone, the first call and the deposition transcript belong to the same person.

Every case is different. Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome; each result depends on the specific facts and law of that matter.

CRD complaints go to the state, not to a local court, so where you live does not limit your access. If the matter proceeds to litigation, FEHA cases from this region are typically filed in Orange County Superior Court in Santa Ana, or in Los Angeles, San Bernardino, or Riverside Superior Court where the employer sits there, with federal claims heard in the Central District of California in Santa Ana or Riverside.

We represent employees from Irvine, Anaheim, and Santa Ana to Ontario, Riverside, and Los Angeles County.