You reported something wrong at work — unsafe conditions, unpaid wages, fraud, discrimination — and not long after, you were written up, demoted, or let go. Coincidence? California law takes that timing seriously, and a key Supreme Court decision made it easier for employees to hold employers accountable.
The situation. California’s whistleblower statute, Labor Code section 1102.5, protects employees who report what they have reasonable cause to believe is illegal, whether they report it to a supervisor or someone with authority to remedy the situation, to a government agency, or internally. For years, though, courts disagreed about how hard an employee had to work to prove a retaliation claim, and many applied a tough, employer-friendly test borrowed from federal law.
What the court held. In Lawson v. PPG Architectural Finishes, Inc. (2022) 12 Cal.5th 703, the California Supreme Court settled it. Whistleblower claims are governed by Labor Code section 1102.6, not the older, harder framework. Under that standard:
- First, the employee only has to show that their protected activity, the reporting, was a contributing factor in the firing, demotion, or other adverse action. Not the only reason. Not even the main reason. Just a contributing one.
- Then the burden shifts to the employer, which must prove by clear and convincing evidence, a high bar, that it would have made the same decision anyway for legitimate, independent reasons.
Why it matters. This is a meaningfully more employee-friendly path. An employer can no longer defeat a whistleblower claim just by pointing to some other plausible reason for the firing; it has to actually prove it would have acted the same way regardless. California courts have continued to apply and refine the Lawson standard in the years since, so it remains the framework that governs these cases today.
The takeaway for employees. If you were punished soon after raising a concern, the sequence of events matters, and the law may put real pressure on your employer to justify what it did. These cases turn on details, what you reported, to whom, when, and what happened next, so written documentation and timing are very important.
If that sounds like your situation, it’s worth a conversation. At Grochow Law, we represent California employees in whistleblower and retaliation cases and can help you understand where you stand.
