Retaliation Lawyers in Seattle

Punished at Work for Exercising Your Legal Rights?

When you report discrimination, file a wage complaint, or blow the whistle on illegal conduct at work, the law protects your right to do so. If your employer punished you for it, our retaliation lawyers can help you fight back.

Rekhi & Wolk has represented hundreds of Seattle and Washington employees against employers of every size, proving when a termination, demotion, or pay cut was really payback for exercising a protected right. When it is, you may be entitled to lost wages, emotional distress damages, and punitive damages.

Retaliation Claims Can Have Very Short Statutes of Limitations

The deadline to file can be as short as 30 days from the notice of adverse action, and the clock you are on depends on which agency has jurisdiction over your claim:

• Washington State Human Rights Commission
• Seattle Office of Labor Standards
• Washington Department of Labor & Industries
• The EEOC’s Seattle field office

Each has its own deadline, so it is critical to identify the right one quickly, file your claim, and preserve your rights. Speak with a retaliation attorney as soon as you can.

How Local Laws Affect Your Retaliation Claim

If you work within Seattle city limits, ordinances enforced by the Office of Labor Standards, including the Wage Theft Ordinance and the Paid Sick and Safe Time Ordinance, carry their own anti-retaliation protections that a worker in Bellevue or Redmond may not have. Sorting out which city, state, and federal laws apply to your specific worksite is one of the first things we do.

What Forms Can Workplace Retaliation Take?

Retaliation doesn’t always mean getting fired. Termination is the most egregious form, but far from the only one. It can also look like:

Unjust Demotion

If you were demoted after filing a whistleblower claim or a complaint to exercise your legally protected employment rights, that demotion may be unlawful.

Reduction of Hours or Pay

If your hours were cut or your pay was reduced after you exercised a legally protected right, the timing may point to retaliation.

Unjust Disciplinary Action

Many jobs entail periodic employee reviews and assessments. A sudden negative review that follows your exercise of a protected right can be a red flag.

Reassignment to a Less Desirable Job

Rather than fire you outright, which looks obviously retaliatory, some employers apply subtler pressure. Reassigning you to a less desirable role can be an attempt to push you out the door on your own.

Creating a Hostile Work Environment

Harassment by managers, supervisors, or coworkers can result if an employer informs them of your perceived disloyalty to the company in exercising your rights.

This is far from a complete list of the forms retaliation can take, and sometimes it is even harder to identify. If you suspect something is wrong, reach out to speak with an experienced attorney.

Damages Available in Workplace Retaliation Claims

Compensatory Damages

In a workplace retaliation case, you may recover the wages you’ve lost due to your employer’s unlawful retaliation. You may also receive compensation for the cost of any medical care you needed, including therapy and medications.

Emotional Distress

If the retaliation caused you mental or emotional anguish, you might be entitled to compensation.

Punitive Damages

If your employer’s retaliatory actions were particularly egregious, you might be entitled to punitive damages to punish your employer and deter other employers from engaging in the same behavior.

Attorneys’ Fees and Court Costs

Some statutes allow the court to grant someone who experienced retaliation their attorneys’ fees and court costs.

What Are the 3 Elements of Retaliation Claims?

In order to prove workplace retaliation, three elements must line up: you engaged in a protected activity, your employer took an adverse action, and the two are connected.

Protected Activity

Protected activities include complaining about workplace discrimination, requesting a disability or religious accommodation, reporting illegal conduct such as wage or safety violations or fraud, and exercising rights like filing for workers’ compensation or taking family or medical leave.

Adverse Action

An adverse action is any employer response that harms your job, from being fired, demoted, or suspended to subtler moves like an undesirable reassignment or cut hours.

Cause & Effect

You must also show the adverse action was motivated by your protected activity. Close timing between the two is often the key clue, and other facts, such as an employer’s shifting explanations, can help establish it. This applies not only to your employer but to any supervisor or manager acting on its behalf.

Why Employees Choose Our Retaliation Team

Retaliation and whistleblower cases are among the hardest employment claims to prove, and they are the cases our firm has built its reputation on. From our Lower Queen Anne office, we represent employees across the Puget Sound region, from aerospace and manufacturing workers in Everett and Renton to the tech and healthcare corridor around Kirkland and south to Tacoma‘s port and warehouse workforce.

Here is what sets our retaliation practice apart:

• Whistleblower and retaliation results, specifically. We have won landmark whistleblower decisions that shaped federal environmental protections and one of the largest whistleblower judgments in Washington history, in cases involving racism, sexual harassment, fraud, worker safety, and government corruption.
• Trial and appellate lawyers who do not fold. Against well-funded employers, our attorneys have tried cases in Washington state and federal courts and argued before the Washington Court of Appeals and the Ninth Circuit.
• A respected five-attorney bench. Partner Hardeep Rekhi is a King County District Court Judge Pro Tem and former Super Lawyer, partner Greg Wolk has advanced whistleblower law since 2002, and our associates add public defender and appellate experience, all on the employee side.
• A deliberately small caseload. We take only a few clients at a time, so partners with more than 50 years of combined experience handle your case directly.

If you believe you have been retaliated against, do not wait. Deadlines can be short, and an early review protects your options.