California Termination Laws – 5 That Every Worker Should Know

California termination laws regulate what happens when you are discharged from your job. Here are five that every worker should be aware of:

1. you are generally an at-will employee,
2. if you are terminated for an unlawful reason it can be a wrongful termination,
3. you are entitled to a final paycheck,
4. you are entitled to a notice period before certain mass layoffs, and
5. you can be constructively terminated.

Note that these labor laws only apply to California employees, not to independent contractors.

1. California is an at-will employment state

Like every other state in the U.S. except for Montana, the state of California presumes that employment is at-will. This means that either you or your employer can end the employment:

• at any time, and
• for any reason at all, or for no reason.

You will be an at-will employee unless:

• you and your employer agree otherwise, or
• there is an exception to the presumption of at-will employment.¹

You and your employer can agree that it is not an at-will employment arrangement in the employment contract. Generally, though, the employment contract will explicitly state that the job is at-will.

2. A discharge can still violate wrongful termination laws

Even if you are an at-will employee, your employer is not allowed to fire you because you:

• exercised a legal right or privilege in the workplace, such as medical leave under the California Family Rights Act,
• performed a legal obligation,
• reported a potential violation of the law (“whistleblowing”), or
• refused to break the law.²

An especially common ground for a wrongful termination claim is if your employer does it out of retaliation for your filing a discrimination claim under the California Fair Employment and Housing Act (FEHA). This is a claim that your employer is discriminating against you based on any of the following protected classes:

• national origin,
• race,
• sex,
• marital status,
• gender or gender identity,
• sexual orientation,
• genetic information,
• medical condition,
• disability, and
• many others.³

If you suspect that you were fired for any of these illegal reasons, you may have legal recourse.

3. Your employer still has to pay any wages that you have earned

In California, if you have been terminated from your job, you are still entitled to receive the wages that you have earned. Those earned wages include:

• any wages that still have not been paid to you,
• unused vacation time, and
• any other unused but accrued paid time off (PTO), such as sick leave.

If you were terminated, your final paycheck has to be paid immediately.

If you provided at least 72 hours of notice of your resignation, then you are entitled to receive your final pay on your last day of work.

If you did not provide 72 hours of notice, then you are entitled to your final pay within 72 hours.

If your employer willfully fails to pay on time, you are also entitled to waiting time penalties.⁴

4. Prior notice is required before certain mass layoffs

The California Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act (WARN Act) regulates mass layoffs in the state.

Under the WARN Act, large employers must provide at least 60 days of advance notice before a:

• mass layoff of 50 or more employees in a 30-day period,
• major relocation to somewhere 100 or more miles away, or
• plant closure of at least a substantial portion of the activities.

That notice has to be provided to:

• workers, and
• local government officials.

Only large employers with at least 75 employees in the past year are subject to the WARN Act. Employers that fail to provide adequate notice have to pay back pay and benefits to fired employees for the number of days that the employer was silent.

There is a federal equivalent of California’s WARN Act. The federal law, however, does not provide as extensive protections as the state law does. Terminated employees generally invoke their employee rights under California’s law, instead.⁵

5. You can be constructively terminated

A constructive termination happens when your employer makes your working conditions so bad that a reasonable employee would have no choice but to quit.

In these cases, you may have grounds for a wrongful termination even though you quit. To do so, you would have to show that:

• your employer intentionally or knowingly created an intolerable working situation for you,
• you had no choice but to resign due to those conditions, and
• you had your employer explicitly fired you, you would have had a valid claim for wrongful termination against them.⁶

What can I do if I have been wrongfully terminated?

You can file a lawsuit. An attorney will know what the statute of limitations in your case is: Generally, you have 2 or 3 years to file a wrongful termination claim in California, though in some cases you may have as little as 180 days.

These lawsuits can demand the following types of damages:

• lost wages and benefits, also known as back pay,
• lost future wages, or front pay,
• emotional distress,
• attorneys’ fees,
• court costs,
• punitive damages, and
• injunctive relief, such as reinstatement to your old job.

What if my employer is refusing to pay my final wages?

If you have been terminated but your former employer is refusing to pay your final wages, you can file a wage and hour lawsuit. These lawsuits demand reimbursement for your unpaid wages as well as:

• unpaid overtime,
• meal or rest breaks that were not provided,
• wages for hours worked “off the clock,”
• a waiting time penalty,
• liquidated damages,
• attorneys’ fees, and
• court costs.⁷

Additional reading

For more in-depth information, refer to these articles:

• Wrongful termination and the expanding public policy exception: Implications and advice – SAM Advanced Management Journal.
• The Legal Consequences of a Wrongful Termination – Constitutional Law International.
• Adverse Employment Action in Retaliation Cases – University of Baltimore Law Review.
• Past, Present, and Future in Wrongful Termination Law – Labor Law.
• How To Resign From Your Job In The Most Professional Way – Forbes.

---

Legal references