Employee Complaints of Workplace Safety are Protected Activities

California Labor Code Section 6400 et seq. mandates that California employers provide a workplace that is safe and healthful for its employees.  California Code of Civil Procedure Section 527.8 authorizes an employer to seek a Temporary Restraining Order and injunctive relief against an individual when there has been a credible threat of workplace violence. Consistent with these employer obligations and remedies, an employer is expected to take reasonable steps to address threatened and actual violence in the workplace.  When it fails to do so and, in fact, takes adverse employment action against an employee complaining of violence, it becomes vulnerable to liability.  This was the lesson learned by the employer in the recent case of Franklin v. The Monadnock Company.

In that case, Plaintiff employee filed a lawsuit against his employer, Monadnock for Wrongful Termination in Violation of Public Policy.  In that lawsuit, the employee alleged that a co-worker had threatened to kill him and three other co-workers.  The employer failed to do anything in response to the complaints.  Thereafter, Plaintiff was assaulted by the co-worker with a screwdriver.  He made a complaint to the police and then was fired by the employer.  The court held Plaintiff stated a valid claim for "violation of the public policy that protects an employee against discharge for making a good faith complaint about working conditions that he reasonably believes to be unsafe." Please click on this link for full text of case.