Wrongful Termination Lawyer in Glendale, California

California’s Fair Employment and Housing Act (FEHA) prohibits employers with five or more employees from firing workers because of protected characteristics such as race, age, disability, or pregnancy, and separately bars retaliation against employees who file complaints with the California Civil Rights Department (CRD). Labor Code section 1102.5 extends whistleblower protection to employees at companies of any size who report suspected legal violations. If you were fired in Glendale and any of these circumstances fit your situation, you likely have a legal claim. Under Government Code section 12960, you generally have three years from the date of the firing to file a complaint with the CRD, and you must obtain a Right-to-Sue notice before you can take the case to court.

Terminations That Violate FEHA

FEHA makes it unlawful for a covered employer to fire an employee because of any of the following protected characteristics:

• Identity: Race, color, national origin, ancestry, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression
• Health and disability: Disability (physical or mental), medical condition, genetic information
• Age: Age 40 or older
• Family and personal status: Pregnancy, childbirth or related medical conditions, marital status
• Service: Military or veteran status

FEHA covers both direct termination and constructive dismissal, which is the situation where an employer makes working conditions so intolerable that a reasonable employee is left with no real choice but to resign. If your employer created unbearable conditions tied to one of the characteristics above until you quit, that resignation can still be treated as a wrongful termination under California law.

The five-employee threshold matters for Glendale residents working in the city’s many small restaurants, nail salons, retail shops, and medical offices. If your employer had four or fewer employees at the time of your firing, FEHA’s anti-discrimination and termination protections do not apply. That said, you are not necessarily without options, as explained below.

If you want a broader overview of California wrongful termination law before reading further, this guide to wrongful termination in California provides useful background context.

Terminations That Violate California’s Whistleblower Statute (Labor Code Section 1102.5)

Labor Code section 1102.5 contains three distinct prohibitions that many employees and even some employers do not realize exist separately from FEHA:

• Section 1102.5(b): Reporting a violation. An employer cannot fire you for disclosing information to a government agency, a law enforcement agency, or even to your own manager or supervisor, if you reasonably believe that information shows a violation of a state or federal statute, or a local, state, or federal rule or regulation. The protection applies even if the employer merely believes you might make such a disclosure.
• Section 1102.5(c): Refusing to do something illegal. An employer cannot fire you for refusing to participate in an activity that would violate a state or federal statute or a local, state, or federal rule or regulation.
• Section 1102.5(d): Past whistleblowing at a former job. A new employer cannot fire you because you exercised whistleblower rights at a prior employer. The protection follows you from one job to the next.

Unlike FEHA’s five-employee threshold, Labor Code section 1102.5 contains no employee-count floor in its text. A worker at a two-person company who reports wage theft to the Labor Commissioner is protected from retaliation under section 1102.5, even though that same worker would fall outside FEHA’s anti-termination coverage.

If your termination correlated with a complaint you filed, a disclosure you made, a protected characteristic, or a medical leave, the circumstances described in this article may apply to you right now. The most important immediate action is to preserve your documentation before accounts are deactivated, emails are lost, or your memory of specific conversations fades. The three-year window under Government Code section 12960 gives you time, but the practical ability to prove your case erodes quickly. If you are considering requesting an immediate Right-to-Sue notice, understand that once the CRD issues it, the agency will not investigate your complaint, and you will have one year to file suit. Consulting with a wrongful termination lawyer before choosing that option protects you from making an uninformed procedural decision. Glendale’s diverse workforce and high concentration of small businesses make employer-size questions especially common here; do not assume you lack protection simply because your employer is small.