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