Filing an Employment Claim After Quitting Your Job

Answer:

A lot of employees that we represent throughout the year are employees that have been fired. There’s a smaller subset of employees that we get that quit their jobs, and they wonder what affect quitting their job in California has on any claims they may or may not have. For employees that feel like they’ve been subjected to wage violations, what affect does quitting your job have on your claim? Not much. Any rights that you had as an employee will survive either termination or quitting. If you have a wage claim of some kind – an underpayment of overtime, unpaid wages, meal rest breaks – whether you quit or get fired for any reason, you’re always going to be able to assert your claims. If you’re an employee that quits and you’ve been subject to what you believe is unlawful conduct – discrimination, harassment, or retaliation – and you quit, that can be a harder question as to whether or not the courts are going to allow you to proceed in court. This has to do with what we in California call ‘constructive discharge.’ Without getting too legal about it, constructive discharge is the court or a jury will determine whether a person in your setting had no other choice but to quit, that a reasonable person in your situation had to quit or else face additional discrimination, harassment or retaliation. Before anybody quits, I think it’s extremely important that you talk to an attorney. If you’re trying to make a decision as to whether or not you quit, please don’t make that decision based off of something you read on the internet. It’s very important that before you quit your job in California because of retaliation, discrimination, or harassment that you talk to somebody, whether that’s my firm or another one. If you have questions and you think our firm can help you answer those questions, please reach out to us. We’re more than happy to discuss what options you may have as a current employee. Thanks, and we look forward to talking with you.