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- Available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week
- - SE HABLA ESPAÑOL
Lost a job in Fresno after refusing an illegal order, raising a safety concern, or asserting a legal right? The firm represents Central Valley workers — never employers.
NYU Law & NYU Stern alum · Former Skadden, Arps and Latham & Watkins counsel · Worker-side employment trial practice · No-cost initial consultation
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Workers in Fresno fired for refusing to break the law, flagging illegal conduct, asserting a constitutional or statutory right, or carrying out a public duty have a wrongful-termination claim under California’s Tameny doctrine. Tameny is a common-law tort that sits alongside any FEHA or Labor Code claim and opens the door to punitive damages where the employer’s conduct was malicious, fraudulent, or oppressive. California courts have applied the doctrine to firings tied to refusing perjury, refusing to participate in antitrust schemes, answering a jury-duty summons, reporting workplace safety violations, and exercising the right to talk pay with coworkers. A successful claim can recover back pay, front pay, compensation for emotional distress, and — on the right facts — punitive damages on top of contract recovery. Simon Moshkovich — NYU Law, formerly with Skadden and Latham — reads every Fresno intake personally.
The Fresno County employment work runs from a single operating belief: a worker-side shop that signs a smaller docket and treats every matter like jury-bound litigation will outwork a volume settlement mill on what the client actually keeps. That belief shapes the practice in Fresno and across every other case the firm signs. Representation runs one direction only — the worker — so there is no roster of Central Valley packing operations, dairies, hospital systems, or Highway 99 warehouse operators that the firm would need to handle gently. Simon Moshkovich personally reviews every Fresno intake, and each file gets the same discovery-and-deposition discipline he sharpened on the defense side at Skadden and Latham, now turned back at the employers running the same play.
California’s wrongful-termination law reaches further than the federal baseline, and most of the Fresno-area firings that hit the firm — agricultural packing operations, dairy and food-processing lines across the county, Community Regional Medical and Saint Agnes-affiliated facilities, the Highway 99 distribution corridor, school-district campuses, and county and city offices — show up with a stack of performance write-ups that did not exist a month before the worker raised something. The Tameny tort reaches firings that violate fundamental public policy. FEHA bars termination based on age over forty, race, religion, sex, pregnancy, disability, national origin, sexual orientation, gender identity, marital status, and military or veteran status. CFRA preserves medical leave for the worker or a covered family member. Labor Code section 232 protects coworkers comparing pay — a topic that still draws retaliation in Fresno hourly workplaces where management treats wage discussion as off-limits. A documented for-cause termination or a real reduction in force is lawful, but a retaliatory firing dressed up with a back-dated write-up rarely holds up once a full email, Slack, and HR-system production lands on the timeline.
What a Fresno wrongful-termination judgment pays splits across specific dollar categories. Lost wages, overtime, commissions, incentive pay, 401(k) contributions, and benefits — running from the termination date through entry of judgment — fall under back pay. Forward earning damage, where the firing set the worker back in the labor market, comes in as front pay. Compensation for emotional distress is recoverable under FEHA and the Tameny tort, with no California analog to the federal cap. When the employer’s conduct rises to malice, fraud, or oppression, punitive damages come into play — a finding Fresno County juries have made on the right record. FEHA also shifts attorneys’ fees onto the defendant when the worker prevails, so hourly billing does not eat the recovery. California limitations periods run from one to four years, and missing the shortest one closes the matter before it opens.
Free, confidential review for workers in Fresno. A direct read on whether the firing makes a viable Fresno County claim — or doesn’t.
Inside a Fresno County courtroom, an employment case pulls the kind of attention it earned during the file-build, not the kind it asks for at the negotiation table — so the work that drives strong settlements gets going from day one. A litigation-hold letter goes to the former employer demanding preservation of every email, Slack thread, Teams chat, HR record, performance evaluation, time-keeping export, schedule history, and management exchange touching the firing. From the worker’s side, the firm pulls together what the client already has on hand: text threads, prior reviews, training certifications, calendar invites, anything saved off a personal device. Witnesses are identified and put on the record while the events are still fresh in their minds. The deposition strategy then targets the gap between what the employer’s own documents show and the version it intends to tell — and that gap is what makes a Fresno County verdict harder for the defense to face than a settlement check.
Hiring at this firm tends to start with a referral — from a worker whose matter finally got real attention after a previous firm let the file go cold. The arc that Fresno workers describe rarely changes: they sign with a high-volume plaintiff shop, get handed to whichever associate has bandwidth, and watch the file drift toward an early settlement priced for the firm rather than for the harm done. The model here runs in the opposite direction. Each file is staffed by a senior attorney directly. The docket stays intentionally small, so a Fresno matter is not buried behind two hundred others. Workers only — never management — so there is no quiet conflict on the other side. And the firm declines cases it does not believe it can win — part of why a yes here lands differently with the defense.
A few representative California employment matters the firm has resolved. Each Fresno County case carries its own facts and procedural posture, and any prior outcome is not a prediction of how a new Fresno matter will land for any specific worker.
Within weeks of filing an internal harassment complaint against a direct supervisor, the worker was let go. The performance grounds the company recited were contradicted by the prior reviews already in the personnel file. The matter closed at mediation on a confidential payment with clean separation terms.
At a Southern California logistics employer, a senior staffer was terminated shortly after escalating wage-violation concerns through internal channels. Discovery dismantled the company’s performance-based defense, with its own HR records undercutting the timing. The matter settled confidentially in the seven figures before trial.
A technical worker at a California manufacturer was discharged after escalating documented compliance concerns. Focused discovery into the chain of decision-making produced the leverage that drove a confidential settlement.
Pick up the phone at (818) 538-3458 or fill out the contact form. A few sentences on your role, the way the termination went down, and what came before it is plenty to open the file. Confidentiality begins the moment you reach out.
Simon or a senior attorney sits with you on the facts and gives a straight read: viable claim or not, a realistic damages range, the defenses Fresno County employers tend to push. A conversation — not a sales call.
Once the matter clears intake, the firm fires off a written preservation demand to the former employer covering email archives, Slack and Teams chat histories, HR records, time-keeping exports, and the entire performance file. If the shortest applicable filing deadline is closing in, the agency complaint goes out the same week.
With the record built, the call is yours: take a settlement the leverage in the file actually justifies, or put the case in front of a Fresno County jury. The firm’s job is to make sure the choice rests on the documents — not on financial pressure at home.
Free, confidential consultation. Every Fresno intake lands directly with Simon Moshkovich or a senior partner.
