What Compensation Can You Get for Workplace Harassment or Discrimination in California?

Workplace harassment and discrimination can leave a lasting and even traumatic impact on your life. But it’s important to remember that you have rights and legal options for seeking justice. Compensation for the mistreatment you’ve endured not only helps you recover financially, but also restores a sense of justice, dignity, and fairness.

By pursuing damages for lost wages, emotional damages, and even punitive damages in some cases, you’re taking an empowering step towards holding your employer accountable for their alienating and harmful actions. At Yash Law Group, we work diligently to help employees like you secure both the justice you deserve and the compensation you’re owed.

Recently, the skilled team at Yash Law Group won over $500,000 for their client who experienced wage violations and sexual harassment at her job in Orange County. The trial lasted about four weeks and the jury took two days to deliberate and reach this exceptional result.

Lost Wages and Benefits: Compensation for Financial Losses

Whether you were forced to leave your job because of a hostile work environment, had your schedule changed or hours reduced because of workplace retaliation, lost your health insurance when you needed it, faced wrongful termination, or experienced a demotion that reduced your income, these financial losses can be devastating.

Thankfully, California law allows victims of workplace harassment or discrimination to seek compensation for the wages and benefits they’ve lost as a result of unfair treatment.

Lost wages refer to income you would have earned had the harassment or discrimination not happened. For example, where would you be in your career if that superior hadn’t always given you low-priority projects because you were pregnant? How much salary should you have made if you were paid the same as your colleagues of other races or genders? How much in wages would you have earned if you were not fired for complaining about unlawful activity at the workplace? These lost wages can include:

• Back Pay – Wages you lost during the period starting when you were demoted, terminated, or forced to leave the workplace until your case has resolved.
• Front Pay – If you cannot or don’t want to be reinstated to your previous job position, you can receive compensation for future wages you would’ve earned had you stayed even after your case settles or trial concludes.

In cases where your long-term career or ability to work has been significantly impacted by the harassment or discrimination you experienced, California courts may consider factors such as: your salary before the incident, the time you lost from work, and your projected career path to determine the amount of compensation you should receive.

In addition to wages, you can also seek compensation for the loss of employment benefits, including health insurance – and any funds you had to personally pay to cover medical bills – pension or retirement contributions, and bonuses, commissions, and promotions.

Proving lost wages and benefits can be complex, especially when calculating future earnings or benefits that may have been affected by your ongoing mistreatment. To successfully claim lost wages and benefits, you must provide clear evidence of how the harassment or discrimination directly impacted your income or expenses. Your attorney can help you gather:

• Pay stubs, W2s, or tax returns, potentially comparing your income to others in comparable positions
• Benefits statements or documentation from your employer about lost health insurance, retirement plan contributions, or other employment perks
• Letters, emails, or other communications that document the harassment or discriminatory actions that led to your lost income

At Yash Law Group, we work closely with financial experts and use our extensive legal knowledge to ensure that we accurately calculate and present your full financial losses to the court and jury. We fight to ensure that you receive the maximum compensation for your past and future losses.

How Much Can You Recover for Emotional Distress Damages?

Illegal workplace harassment and discrimination often leave more than just financial scars. This type of mistreatment can leave deep emotional and psychological effects that linger long after the incident. Emotional distress damages are designed to compensate victims for the mental suffering they’ve endured as a result of their treatment – this includes anxiety, depression, fear, humiliation, and loss of self-esteem.

While these damages are hard to quantify compared to lost benefits or wages, California law allows you to seek compensation for the emotional impact of unlawful workplace behavior. Employment Attorney Jesse Singh understands the factors that are weighed when calculating emotional and mental distress and regularly surveys verdicts in courts throughout California where juries awarded large emotional distress damages.

Emotional distress may arise from a variety of circumstances, such as:

• Repeated and offensive verbal abuse or derogatory remarks
• Being ostracized or isolated at work due to discriminatory treatment
• Being subjected to threatening, humiliating, or demeaning behavior

Victims often experience stress, anxiety, sleep disturbances, and other physical symptoms as a direct result of the toxic work environment they’ve had to tolerate. In severe cases, victims may develop more significant mental health conditions, such as depression or post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) that significantly affects their ability to function or find new work.

Unlike financial losses, calculating the value of emotional damages is less straightforward. Courts will consider several factors when determining the total amount you can recover:

• The Severity of the Emotional Harm – The more intense and long-lasting the distress, the higher the potential compensation. Victims who’ve experienced or continue to experience severe anxiety, depression, or psychological trauma are likely to receive bigger awards. If the distress has continued to affect your daily life, ability to work, or relationships, this can increase the value of your claim.
• Evidence of Emotional Distress – Medical or psychological records, testimony from a mental health professional, and statements from family members or coworkers can help demonstrate the extent of the emotional harm you’ve experienced.
• Employer Conduct – The more egregious, offensive, or malicious your employer’s behavior, the more likely courts or juries are to award higher damages. For example, if your employer deliberately ignored complaints or retaliated against you for reporting harassment or discrimination, this could lead to a significantly increased reward.

In some cases, you may have paid direct costs related to your emotional distress, such as therapy bills or prescription medications. These out-of-pocket expenses can also be compensated when considering emotional distress damages.

How Are Punitive Damages Calculated in Workplace Harassment and Discrimination Cases?

In some cases of workplace misconduct, victims can recover punitive damages – these are in addition tocompensatory damages such as lost wages and emotional distress.

Punitive damages are designed to punish your employer for especially bad behavior and to discourage them from repeating it. These damages are not meant to compensate you directly for your losses but to hold the wrongdoer accountable for extreme violations of the law.

Punitive damages are also reserved for cases where an employer’s conduct goes beyond mere negligence and into the realm of willful misconduct or gross indifference to the rights of their employees. They may be appropriate if your employer:

• Knowingly engaged in discriminatory or harassing behavior
• Ignored or failed to take corrective action after repeated complaints
• Retaliated against you for reporting harassment or discrimination
• Acted in ways that showed malice, oppression, or fraud

Punitive damages are meant to send a strong message signaling that these types of actions will not be tolerated under the law – and that employers who commit these offenses will face severe financial consequences beyond just the impact on their employees.

Recovering punitive damages in a workplace harassment or discrimination case requires the guidance of a skilled attorney who understands how to build a compelling case and present the evidence you need to demonstrate your employer’s willful misconduct. Proving that an employer acted maliciously often involves thorough investigation and expert legal strategy, including retrieving bank records and other financial records about a company’s or person’s net worth.

At Yash Law Group, we have extensive experience fighting for and recovering punitive damages in California employment law cases. We understand the high bar for securing these damages and we’re committed to holding employers accountable for their unlawful actions.

Contact us now to get started on seeking justice and getting the compensation you deserve.