Your rights in California

Final pay

California is among the strictest states in the country on when you must be paid after separation.

• Laid off or fired: your wages are "due and payable immediately."Labor Code 201(a)
• You quit without notice: within 72 hours. With at least 72 hours notice, on your last day. Labor Code 202(a)
• Vested vacation and PTO must be paid "as wages at his final rate," and a policy "shall not provide for forfeiture of vested vacation time upon termination."Labor Code 227.3
• If final pay is late: a waiting time penalty of your wages continuing at the same rate for each day late, capped at 30 days.Labor Code 203

Your records

Three separate statutes, three separate clocks, two with penalties attached.

Former employees are generally limited to one personnel file request per yearunder Labor Code 1198.5(d), so make the first one complete.

Labor Code 432 is the heart of this campaign. Its operative sentence reads: "If an employee or applicant signs any instrument relating to the obtaining or holding of employment, he shall be given a copy of the instrument upon request." The history note reads "Amended by Stats. 1969, Ch. 714." It has not changed since.

Ready-to-send request letter

Separation agreements

• At least five business days to consider the agreement, with written notice of your right to consult an attorney.Government Code 12964.5(b)(4)
• Required carve-out. A clause restricting disclosure about workplace conduct must state that nothing prevents you from "discussing or disclosing information about unlawful acts in the workplace, such as harassment or discrimination or any other conduct that you have reason to believe is unlawful."Government Code 12964.5(b)(1)(B)
• The employer may keep the settlement amount confidential.Government Code 12964.5(e)
• No-rehire clauses in settlements of filed claims entered on or after January 1, 2020 are "void as a matter of law and against public policy," with a narrow exception. Code of Civil Procedure 1002.5
• Provisions barring disclosure of factual information about filed harassment, discrimination or retaliation claims are void.Code of Civil Procedure 1001
• If you are 40 or over: 21 days to consider, or 45 days in a group termination program, plus 7 days to revoke after signing, which cannot be shortened. In a group program the employer must disclose the job titles and ages of those selected and not selected in the decisional unit.29 U.S.C. 626(f)(1)

Non-competes and other restraints

• Every contract restraining anyone from engaging in a lawful profession, trade or business is void to that extent. Employment non-competes are void "no matter how narrowly tailored." Business and Professions Code 16600
• Void regardless of where or when signed. An employer may not attempt to enforce one. A prevailing employee "shall be entitled to recover reasonable attorney's fees and costs."Business and Professions Code 16600.5, effective Jan 1, 2024
• Employers were required to send individualized written notice by February 14, 2024 telling current and former employees that any such clause is void. Failure is an act of unfair competition.Business and Professions Code 16600.1
• A provision requiring you to litigate outside California, or to apply another state's law, is voidable by you if you were not individually represented by your own counsel in negotiating it.Labor Code 925
• Invention assignment cannot reach work done entirely on your own time, without employer equipment, supplies, facilities or trade secrets, and unrelated to the employer's business. Labor Code 2870

Trade secret obligations are different and they do survive. SeeVoid, but still printed.

Layoff notice

The California WARN Act is broader than the federal one. A covered establishment is one that employs, or has employed in the preceding 12 months,75 or more persons. A mass layoff is a layoff of50 or more employees within any 30-day period at a covered establishment. Notice must be given 60 days before the order takes effect.Labor Code 1400.5 and 1401

Remedies include back pay for up to 60 days plus benefits, a civil penalty of up to $500 per day for failures to notify public officials, and attorney's fees for a prevailing plaintiff.Labor Code 1402, 1403, 1404

Federal WARN applies to employers with 100 or more employees and uses different thresholds.29 U.S.C. 2101-2102

Unemployment

• File immediately. There is a one-week unpaid waiting period.
• Severance is generally not wages for California unemployment purposes where it is paid under a company plan to a class or group of employees, following the California Supreme Court's 1965 decision in Powell.EDD benefit determination guide, TPU 460.35
• Vacation paid out when the job ends does not reduce weekly benefits if you have no return-to-work date. On a temporary layoff with a return date, vacation pay for a specific week reduces that week. Pay in lieu of notice must be reported; its treatment depends on the facts.Unemployment Insurance Code 1265.5; EDD unemployment eligibility FAQ
• 30 days to appeal a determination, from the mailing date of the notice. Late appeals require good cause.

Report everything you received and describe it accurately. Do not decide for yourself that something does not count.

Health coverage

• Federal COBRA: employers with 20 or more employees. 60 days to elect, generally 18 months of coverage, at up to 102 percent of the cost to the plan. First premium generally due 45 days after election.
• Cal-COBRA: employers with 2 to 19 employees, with continuation up to 36 months total in combination with federal COBRA.
• Covered California: losing job-based coverage gives you60 days before or after your coverage ends to apply. Subsidies are based on your current income, which has just changed.

Price both before electing either. See Money after the job.

Complaint deadlines

These are the deadlines people most often lose, because they feel far away until they are not.

Note the gap between 3 years at the state agency and 300 days at the EEOC. People who assume they have years sometimes lose the federal claim without knowing it existed.

Claims against public entities have separate, much shorter government claim deadlines. If you worked for a city, county, school district or the state, ask about that specifically, and ask early.

All the clocks in one table

The master deadline table is in training module three, along with a ten-minute exercise to get every one of them into your calendar today.