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Protecting Pregnant Workers with Emily Pincin · Justice Team Podcast

• 0:02
  Welcome to this episode of the Justice Team Podcast on the Justice Team Network.
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  I'm your host, Bob Simon, giving you practical advice for lawyers
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  out there to make you better advocates for your clients.
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  And we have a fierce advocate in the room today.
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  We have Ms.
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  Emily Pinson.
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  Emily, welcome to the show.
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  Thank you.
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  Thank you for having me.
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  Emily's a founding partner of Kent Pinson and they, they guys
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  concentrate just on employee rights.
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  Correct.
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  Yeah, we do mostly employment law and we do have some personal
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  injury, wrongful death type cases.
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  As well, but a majority of our practice is on plaintiff's employment.
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  And how long have you been a lawyer?
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  I have been practicing for about three and a half years,
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  uh, my partner about 10 years.
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  Yeah.
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  And I want people just to realize how, how good you can do in
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  such a short amount of time.
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  'cause Emily was, you went to a prestigious firm, learned how to do
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  a lot of, you know, re relitigation and trial work, and always knew
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  she wanted to work for herself.
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  And here we are.
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  And Emily, can you tell us just in the past.
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  30, 60 days, some of the results that you were able to have, and I
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  know they're probably confidential, but just what you're able to
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  do in a short amount of time.
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  Yeah, we've had some really incredible results recently.
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  We just resolved a pretty big employment case where the employee was a multi
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  year employee of this company.
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  She needed a medical leave of absence for a surgery that she underwent,
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  so she was on FMLA for about three months when she needed an additional
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  about week of accommodations and then she could return to work thereafter
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  and the employer just absolutely refused to accommodate her whatsoever.
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  Let her loose on, you know, the grounds that it was, you know, they needed
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  to fill her position immediately.
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  There was a need to have someone there at work every day and, um,
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  ultimately the position sat vacant for months after her termination.
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  So, clearly there wasn't that.
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  Big of a need, um, so we just resolved that case as well as, um, a pregnancy
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  discrimination case where one of our clients was, um, working for her
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  employer and she, you know, suffered an on duty injury related to her
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  pregnancy and she was just gone for a single day to, to treat with her
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  doctor and the employer let her go.
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  Wow.
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  And it was really sad, but Let
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  me guess, they tried to blame it on something else?
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  Well, no, they, they, they said it was out of the goodness of their heart.
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  They were worried for her.
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  They wanted her to take care of herself.
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  You know, we've, I've noticed this in a lot of our pregnancy discrimination
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  cases where as soon as a woman becomes pregnant She is treated like this
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  fragile little incompetent flower who is a liability on the company And so
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  the company thinks it's safest for them to just get rid of her while they can.
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  Well, this
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  is interesting because you know, we, I want to talk about the, you
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  know, the pregnancy um, advocatism.
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  I can't even say that word.
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  Advocatism.
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  Am I saying it?
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  It sounds good to me.
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  Yeah, I just, I'm not good at diction as, you know, being a trial lawyer.
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  But anyway, um, you know, what things that we're looking for because, you
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  know, I've had calls where people come in and say, you know, I'm pregnant,
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  they're discriminating against me.
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  I don't do this area of law.
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  You know, what are some things where you're doing intake?
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  What are some things you're looking to, to hear in order to
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  know if you could pursue a case?
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  Yeah.
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  I mean, specifically with pregnancy discrimination, I mean,
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  with disability discrimination generally, the employer needs.
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  So they
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  consider it falls within the same category of.
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  Discrimination, disability with pregnancy?
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  Technically under the law, pregnancy discrimination, it falls under sex.
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  Sex or gender discrimination, because it is based on your sex.
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  But, um, you know, a lot of times in our pregnancy discrimination cases,
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  we'll see that there is a parallel or, you know, to disability discrimination.
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  You know, oftentimes women will have some sort of disability
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  that comes along with it.
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  their pregnancy.
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  Occasionally it's preterm bleeding or preeclampsia, high blood
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  pressure, or even post pregnancy.
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  We see a lot of cases where an individual has to be off longer than FMLA because
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  she has, you know, postpartum depression.
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  So that is technically a disability, but it's also related to their pregnancy.
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  So it's not the pregnancy, it's just something else that's going on.
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  Okay.
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  Yeah, exactly.
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  That makes sense.
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  So, so what are some ways that employers discriminate against?
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  You know, like my wife's been through two high risk pregnancies, so we were,
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  and she had to go almost in every week for monitoring and stuff, and if
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  her, well, she's worked for herself, but if her employer let her go or
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  didn't accommodate her, is this kind of what, what you're looking for?
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  Yeah, definitely, and, and we see it a lot, like I said, as soon as a woman gets
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  pregnant, you know, they, they're excited.
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  They tell their boss, they tell their friends at work, and, you know, You know,
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  sometimes there's a positive response, and other times, again, the company
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  looks at her like she's a liability.
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  And I remember this case I worked on a few years ago, it was actually a police
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  officer who was pregnant, and as soon as she told her supervisors at work,
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  they pulled her out of her special assignment due to a, an alleged, you
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  know, health and safety risk to herself.
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  And she was like, you know, what the hell?
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  My doctor hasn't put me off work, I'm not, I'm not a risk.
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  And they made him some, you know, BS excuse that, oh,
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  we don't actually have, um.
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  Pregnancy uniforms for officers.
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  So it's just best, you know that you get out of there now And you know It
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  was this really prestigious special assignment that she worked hard to get
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  and was devastated when she was pulled out So those cases can be you know Really
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  sad and as a woman, they're obviously personal to me I'm you know fortunate
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  enough to have you know, I work for myself now, but if I was working for an
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  employer I would hope that there were lawyers out there who would protect me if
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  I was going through a situation where my employer was just treating me so poorly.
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  I mean
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  whatever you are working with, when you have, um, like a police public entity,
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  are there different, do different rules apply to public entities as
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  opposed to like a private company?
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  Sometimes.
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  So, you know, in any of our cases where we're up against a public entity, there
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  is one, you know, major, um, caveat that we have to keep an eye on and that's if
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  we need to file a government tort claim and so Typically, you know if it's a
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  fair employment and housing act case We don't need to file a government tort
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  claim the statute of limitations to file the claim with the state is Three
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  years from the date of the last bad act.
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  Um,
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  so three year statute limitations for
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  to file the administrative charge with, um, the California
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  Civil Rights Department.
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  And then once you get the right to sue from them, you have
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  a year to file the lawsuit.
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  So it is pretty long on these employment cases, um, which is obviously good
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  because oftentimes in employment, it's not a single incident that
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  really, you know, drives a litigation.
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  Oftentimes it's months of ongoing discrimination, whether that be continuing
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  disability discrimination and failure to accommodate or even years of.
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  You know, sexual harassment, whatever it may be.
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  And then in our public entity cases, if we have, you know, for example,
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  an employee who has blown the whistle on unlawful conduct, um, and then
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  is demoted or terminated as a result thereof, we only have six months
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  from the date of that adverse action to file the government tort claim.
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  Walk us through that, because we said, you know, the
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  So, there is, you know, retaliation under Fair Employment and
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  Housing Act, but there's also retaliation under the Labor Code.
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  So if you have a retaliation claim under California Labor Code 1102.
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  5, That would be where in the public entity context, you would need
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  to file the government tort claim within six months from the date.
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  How are they
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  factually different?
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  What's the difference between those types of cases?
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  So, for example, um, we had an employee of a government entity report that
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  the entity was unlawfully giving COVID 19 vaccines to people who were not
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  legally entitled to receive them yet.
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  That is reporting a violation of state or federal law.
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  It's not reporting a violation of the California Fair
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  Employment and Housing Act.
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  So it wouldn't fall underneath FEHA.
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  It would fall underneath this other labor code.
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  So do you, I mean, sounds like there could be a little gray area.
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  Do you, I mean, do you just play it safe and file the government claim
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  just in case so you don't blow it?
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  We do.
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  And, um, there is definitely an overlap.
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  So for example, in our private entity cases, if we have an employee who.
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  Um, has reported, for example, you know, sexual harassment in the
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  workplace, and then they are terminated.
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  We will file a claim both for retaliation in violation of FEHA and retaliation
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  in violation of the labor code.
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  There's actually a better, you know, burden of proof under the,
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  the labor code cause of action.
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  So it's always best to just include it.
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  So how do you show, I mean, how do you calculate damages?
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  Cause now I come from the personal injury world, we've got medical bills.
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  Future like lost wages.
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  We have pain and suffering.
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  How do you do that?
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  And he's like, you know, discrimination cases or pregnancy discrimination cases.
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  Yeah, that's a good question.
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  And it can be really tough.
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  And I would because
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  I saw some of your in our Justice HQ chats, the recent neighbors in prison.
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  very high settlements.
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  And I'm like, well, how does that, how do you get those on a case like that?
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  Yeah.
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  I mean, in the, in the economic context, you know, one easy
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  analysis is lost wages, right?
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  If an employee is fired and they don't find another job for six
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  months or a year, you can seek those, those lost wages during that time.
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  Honestly speaking, most of our cases have very low or no lost
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  earnings or lost wages at all.
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  So what really drives those cases are The non economic damages, so the emotional
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  distress and pain and suffering, and attorney's fees, because under FEHA
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  you're entitled to attorney's fees.
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  Um, I actually had a defense attorney, employment defense attorney I was
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  talking to the other day about how we've had a lot of trouble recently
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  trying to get defense attorneys to acknowledge the extent of emotional
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  distress damages in our employment cases.
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  I'm And this defense attorney looked at me and she goes, yeah, it's because we think
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  that they're all bullshit all the time.
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  And I was like, these are things you shouldn't be telling me.
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  But um, you know, it really is true that defense attorneys do not put a
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  lot of value on emotional distress.
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  Because
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  I've seen the verdicts that come out of some of these cases and juries take
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  them very seriously and put a lot of money just on the emotional distress
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  that employees have to go through.
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  But you would think a defense lawyer would try to be your
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  best friend to resolve the case.
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  Yeah.
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  Yeah.
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  You know, and.
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  It is good to point out that jurors do acknowledge that, and, you know,
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  you see these high jury awards all the time in these employment cases, and I
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  think it really is because, you know, while hopefully most people will never
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  experience a catastrophic injury or, you know, wrongful death in their life,
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  almost everybody has experience with some sort of unlawful conduct at work.
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  Or, you know.
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  Being treated unfairly and, you know, I think nowadays, especially
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  where people can give their whole lives to a certain career and really
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  dedicate themselves to a company.
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  And then they see how a company treats that employee.
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  People put a lot of stock in that.
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  It's like
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  the betrayal story.
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  It is.
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  It's the betrayal.
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  It's the, you know, getting kicked when you're down and In these disability
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  discrimination cases where someone's just found out, you know, I have
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  cancer I have the worst thing that you can think of happening to you.
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  And then how does the employer double down they You know rip your
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  job out from underneath you or tell you you need to take unpaid leave
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  and now your incomes in jeopardy And you have no insurance coverage and
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  it's just it's really devastating.
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  Yes, sir.
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  Whenever you have Is there insurance involved for these, these
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  companies or these private pay?
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  What's, what's that like on the back end of stuff?
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  Sometimes there is.
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  Um, in our private entity cases, there's often employment liability insurance.
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  Um, government entities are typically either self insured or they just,
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  you know, pay out of the, the taxes.
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  But there's oftentimes insurance involved.
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  Yeah, I think a lot more than people realize that insurance is
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  involved in these types of things.
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  Yeah.
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  Yeah, so what other, We talked about those types of cases, but
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  then how do people find you?
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  What's the best way to find Emily Pinson to be able to refer you a case?
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  I mean, our website, Kent Pinson law dot com.
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  Um, we also, we, we post a lot on social media.
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  Now you can always reach out to us either on LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook.
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  Um, we have a pretty simple form on our website that people can fill out,
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  just put in some basic information and.
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  You know, my partner and I actually conduct all of our own, um, intakes
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  with potential clients on our own.
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  So it's a big job, but it's an important job that you got to
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  screen these
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  heavy for sure.
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  Employment cases are very factually intensive.
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  It's important to have, you know, at least I think an employer's eyes
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  on them at the beginning to fully vet them and see if they're viable.
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  Wow.
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  Yeah.
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  And then how about for those?
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  Those attorney referrals, how do people find you these?
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  I know you're at Justice HQ, we find you here, but how best do they find you?
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  Same way?
• 12:53
  Yeah, same way.
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  I mean, a lot of just networking, getting to know people, um, you know, our PI
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  connections are pretty big, which is good because most PI people don't also
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  dabble in the employment realm and, you know, it's good when they think
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  of us on, on these types of cases.
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  Yeah, so like
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  when I do personal injury, what are some things that I should be telling
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  the lawyers in my firm to look for?
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  If one of our clients who's injured, catastrophically injured, being
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  discriminated against at work, like, what are questions we should be asking them?
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  You know, whether or not they need an accommodation, how long they'll be
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  off work, um, how their employer is generally treating them now that they
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  know they're going to need to take, you know, two days off a month to go
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  get their injections or a day off a week to go to their physical therapy.
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  Um, there is a lot of interplay between personal injury cases and employment.
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  We have one right now where our client was involved in a pretty gnarly car accident
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  and um, you know, she has stitches, broken ankle, needs a couple surgeries,
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  and now her employer is telling her that, you know, she can't take time off.
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  She can't go to her physical therapy appointment.
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  There's no elevator in the building so she can't get upstairs to her desk
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  and so you'll see that a lot in the, in the personal injury realm as well.
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  I love it.
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  For you young lawyers out there, no matter where you are in the nation,
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  it's important to get into a networking group because you find people that are
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  specialists in things that you do not do.
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  And I know that from personal experience that Emily's firm does pay referral
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  fees for cases they do sign from other firms and that's good to have a network
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  to be able to do because I think you do, you know, a lot of people call
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  me with any questions as I'm sure you do, and you've got to find them the
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  best lawyer for that case and that's.
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  That's Emily for a lot of times for this specific case.
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  We'll have some cases.
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  So Emily, thank you for coming on this episode of the justice team podcast.
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  If you have any questions, you can reach out the justice team network.
• 14:41
  com, or you can find Emily directly.
• 14:43
  If you have a discrimination case or any employment issue whatsoever, and either
• 14:46
  her or her partner will do the intake.
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  As so we have learned,
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  thank you for having, you
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  know, you've got to create like an AI bot to just have your
• 14:52
  voice, just do the intake for you.
• 14:54
  Oh God.
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  I feel like that's a long time coming, but eventually you
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  should, you should start that
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  product.
• 14:58
  Yes.
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  Well, thank you for coming on.
• 15:00
  Thank you.