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- Available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week
- - SE HABLA ESPAÑOL
Terminated in Pasadena after a complaint, an accommodation request, or refusing to do something unlawful? The firm represents workers across the San Gabriel Valley — and turns down cases that cannot win.
NYU School of Law · Former Skadden & Latham & Watkins · Free Consultation · Contingency-fee employment counsel
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A termination that does not match the documented record usually has another reason behind it. The HR memo cites “performance” or “restructuring,” the timing happens to follow a complaint, an accommodation request, or a refusal to look the other way, and the worker is asked to sign a severance release the same week. California law treats that pattern as wrongful termination, and the remedies sit well above what federal law provides. FEHA awards uncapped emotional-distress and punitive damages on discrimination, harassment, and retaliation firings, and shifts attorneys’ fees to the employer on a plaintiff verdict. Labor Code section 1102.5 carries civil penalties for whistleblower retaliation. CFRA and the Pregnancy Disability Leave Law cover leave-tied terminations. Public-policy wrongful termination covers the cases the statutes do not name. Simon Moshkovich — NYU Law, former Skadden and Latham — handles every Pasadena intake personally and gives a same-day read.
Mercer Legal Group is a California-based plaintiff-side employment practice with no corporate-defense engagements on the books. The firm screens every termination matter against one question: do the documents and the witnesses carry the case at trial, not just to a quiet settlement? Cases that meet that bar draw a senior attorney for the full life of the file. Cases that do not get an honest answer the same day, with the reasoning explained in plain language. Intakes from Pasadena and the wider San Gabriel Valley reach Simon Moshkovich directly.
California protects workers against firings the rest of the country usually allows. FEHA covers race, color, national origin, ancestry, religion, sex, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, pregnancy, age (40 and over), disability, medical condition, genetic information, marital status, and military or veteran status. Termination in retaliation for a complaint about any of those — whether the complaint concerned the worker or a coworker — is wrongful termination. Labor Code section 1102.5 covers whistleblower retaliation, including internal reports, regulatory complaints, and refusals to participate in conduct the worker reasonably believes is illegal. CFRA and the Pregnancy Disability Leave Law protect leave-takers against firings tied to the leave or to the request itself. Workers’ compensation filings, jury duty, voting leave, and military service all sit on the same protected list. What an employer can do is end the relationship for documented cause or as part of a real reorganization. What it cannot do is dress retaliation up as either one — and around the Pasadena Courthouse the firm sees a steady volume of late-arriving performance write-ups and convenient role eliminations that do not survive a careful timeline.
California wrongful-termination judgments turn the financial damage into recoverable categories the worker can actually claim. Back pay covers wages, commissions, bonuses, equity vesting, and benefits the worker would have earned from the termination date through judgment. Front pay covers future earnings when the firing measurably set the career back. FEHA emotional-distress damages run uncapped under California law and apply to discrimination, harassment, and retaliation firings. Punitive damages stack where the employer acted with malice, oppression, or fraud — California juries have awarded them generously where the documents support the conduct. Section 1102.5 carries civil penalties on top of compensatory damages for whistleblower terminations. Attorneys’ fees and costs go to the employer on a FEHA plaintiff win, so the verdict itself stays with the worker. Statutes of limitation matter: most claims run on either a one-year or three-year clock depending on theory. Severance agreements with broad releases should not be signed before a legal call — California’s Silenced No More Act voids many of them when harassment, discrimination, or retaliation underlie the separation.
Free, confidential intake. Every Pasadena termination matter reaches Simon Moshkovich, and the firm gives a same-day answer on whether the case has a real path.
Termination cases settle for real money when the employer has read the discovery and concluded a jury would side against it. The firm builds toward that conclusion from the first call. A preservation letter goes to the former employer requiring retention of emails, Slack and Teams threads, calendar invites, performance reviews, HR ticket logs, and decision-maker correspondence connected to the termination. The worker’s own copies — personal-account messages, downloaded reviews, contemporaneous notes — get pulled into the file the same week. Witnesses get identified and statements documented before turnover and time erase them. The deposition plan is built around the contradictions the employer’s own records create against the rationale offered for the firing — the manager whose review tone shifts the week after a complaint, the HR partner whose “role elimination” does not square with the requisitions posted next quarter.
Many Pasadena workers reach the firm after a frustrating turn at a volume plaintiff-side shop — case handed to a junior associate, calls returning slowly, pressure to take a quick settlement that read as the firm’s calendar speaking, not the case. The firm runs the opposite playbook. Simon Moshkovich reviews every intake personally — no gatekeeping, no triage by paralegal. The active caseload stays tight on purpose, so each file gets senior-attorney attention from the demand letter through trial. Representation is on the worker’s side only, so there is no quiet alignment with the companies the firm would have to sue along Lake Avenue, in the Old Pasadena professional offices, at JPL-adjacent contractors, or in the Huntington Hospital-affiliated medical groups. And the firm passes on cases it does not believe can win — so when it takes a case, that yes carries weight.
Recent California termination matters the firm has resolved. Each Pasadena-area case turns on its own facts and timing — prior outcomes do not guarantee future results.
A research-side specialist at a California manufacturer escalated documented compliance concerns through internal channels and was terminated shortly afterward. Targeted discovery into the approval chain around the firing produced internal correspondence the employer had not expected to see in the record. The matter resolved on confidential terms.
A worker who had reported persistent harassment by a direct supervisor was terminated weeks later under a stated performance rationale that conflicted with every prior review in the personnel file. The case resolved in mediation with a confidential payment, a neutral reference, and clean separation terms.
A senior team lead at a Southern California operation raised internal wage-and-hour concerns through documented channels and was terminated weeks later under a sudden performance rationale. Discovery surfaced internal correspondence and edited review records that contradicted the stated reason. The case resolved confidentially in the seven figures before trial.
Call (818) 538-3458 or use the contact form. A two- or three-sentence summary — what happened, when, and what the employer said the reason was — is enough to get on the calendar. Anything shared on the call stays confidential whether or not the firm ends up representing you.
Simon or a senior attorney spends 20 to 30 minutes on the facts and gives a direct read: the case theory, what discovery would need to surface, and a realistic damages range. No sales pitch, no retainer pressure before the answer is on the table.
If the termination has merit, a written preservation outline goes out within days — what to save, what to stop doing, what to say (and not say) if HR or a manager calls. When the shortest applicable deadline is close, the agency filing goes out the same week.
With the file built, the choice belongs to the worker: the strongest settlement the case will support, or trial in Los Angeles County Superior Court. The firm’s role is to make sure the record backs whichever path is chosen.
Free first call. Simon or a senior attorney sits with the case summary before the firm commits.
