Statute of Limitations for a Whistleblower Claim

Answer:

As an employment firm in Southern California, we routinely bring what are often referred to as whistleblower claims. There’s various statutes that protect California employees under California law for blowing the whistle. The two main ones are Labor Code §1102.5 and another claim under Labor Code §6310. Both of those claims have statutes of limitations. Depending on the type of remedies that you’re seeking, those claims will run from either one year to three years.

I say it’s extremely important that if you believe you’ve been subjected to retaliation, you take steps to make sure that your claims are preserved. One way of doing that is making a timely claim within the statute of limitations, which one should always assume is well within a year. It’s also important to find an attorney to take steps to inform the employer that there may be a potential claim and not to destroy the evidence. It’s important to find a firm that will send a letter early to the employer, well before the lawsuit is ever filed, to say, “Listen, we represent this employee. These are the types of claims that we may bring. We’re making a demand that evidence is preserved, including emails, video, paper, all types of evidence,” to make sure that once you finally start to litigate the case, all the evidence will be there.

While the statute of limitations might be longer than a year, or they might be a year depending on the statute, it’s important that, if you’ve been subjected to unlawful conduct, you act quickly to make sure that the evidence is there and preserved for when the lawsuit is ultimately filed. If you have any questions as to whether or not you have a claim, and if time has passed and you’re concerned that too much time has passed, it’s important that you quickly call an attorney. If I can walk you through that, please feel free to give me a call and we can discuss those options.