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✦ Certified Specialist in Workers’ Compensation Law — Certified by the State Bar of California, Board of Legal Specialization ✦
Your employer cannot punish you for getting hurt. If they did, we’ll make them pay.
By Eman Yazdchi, Esq. · Certified Specialist in Workers' Compensation Law, State Bar of California Board of Legal Specialization
In California, a Glendale employer who fires, demotes, or otherwise retaliates against an injured worker for filing a workers' comp claim faces a §132a petition — reinstatement, lost wages, and a $10,000 increase in compensation. Yazdchi Law, a Certified Specialist in Workers' Compensation Law firm, handles these at the Van Nuys WCAB. Request a free case review.
Glendale's workforce mix puts retaliation pressure on workers whose schedules depend on a single hospital, retail employer, or back-of-house corporate role — Adventist Health, USC Verdugo Hills, and Glendale Memorial nurses and CNAs; Galleria and Americana retail workers; downtown Disney Imagineering, DreamWorks, and ServiceTitan contract staff; and the hospitality and food-service workforce across the Brand Boulevard corridor. Many of these workers are Spanish-speaking or Armenian-speaking; some are undocumented. The risk that a workers' comp filing will end the role, cut hours, or move the worker to less desirable shifts is a real one.
California addresses that risk through California Labor Code §132a, which makes it unlawful for any employer to discharge, threaten to discharge, or in any manner discriminate against a worker who files or expresses an intent to file a workers' comp claim. The remedies are reinstatement, lost wages, a $10,000 increase in compensation, and costs up to $250. California Labor Code §244 adds a parallel protection: a Glendale employer may not threaten to use a worker's immigration status as retaliation for exercising labor rights — including the right to file a workers' comp claim.
Yazdchi Law's office at 1125 W Avenue M-14 in Palmdale sits about 38 miles north of Glendale via the 14 and 5 — no Glendale satellite office. Eman Yazdchi appears at the Van Nuys WCAB on Glendale §132a and §244 petitions regularly and is a Certified Specialist in Workers' Compensation Law, certified by the California Board of Legal Specialization, State Bar of California.
A Glendale workers' comp retaliation petition is built on three California Labor Code sections that do most of the work: California Labor Code §132a (the anti-retaliation remedy), California Labor Code §244 (the immigration-status protection), and California Labor Code §3351 (coverage regardless of immigration status). This page sits within our broader California §244 anti-ICE-retaliation protections practice. Statute deep-dive: California Labor Code §132a (anti-retaliation).
Under California Labor Code §132a, it is unlawful for a Glendale employer to discharge, threaten to discharge, or in any manner discriminate against a worker because the worker has filed or expressed an intent to file a workers' comp claim, has testified or expressed an intent to testify at a WCAB proceeding, or has received a workers' comp rating, award, or settlement. The remedies are: reinstatement to the prior position with back pay, an increase in the worker's compensation award of $10,000, costs of $250 in the worker's favor, and any other appropriate relief the Van Nuys WCAB orders. The burden is on the worker to show the adverse action was motivated by the workers' comp filing — typically through temporal proximity and a documented pretext.
Under California Labor Code §244, a Glendale employer — hospital, retail operator, hospitality operator, corporate office — may not threaten to report or actually report a worker's immigration status to immigration authorities as retaliation for the worker's exercise of labor rights, including the right to file a workers' comp claim under California Labor Code §3600 and California Labor Code §3351. The threat itself, separate from any actual report, is the unlawful act. California Labor Code §244 runs alongside California Labor Code §132a, and the same Van Nuys WCAB hears the consolidated petition.
A Glendale California Labor Code §132a case requires proof of three elements: (1) the worker filed or expressed an intent to file a workers' comp claim; (2) the employer took an adverse action — termination, demotion, schedule cut, denial of access to the schedule, threat of discharge, threat of immigration consequence; (3) the adverse action was caused by the workers' comp filing. Temporal proximity is a strong evidentiary signal — an adverse action within days or weeks of the filing is hard for the employer to explain. Documented pretexts strengthen the case.
A Glendale California Labor Code §132a petition is filed at the Van Nuys district WCAB under the Board's rules of practice and consolidated with the underlying workers' comp case file. The petition states the facts, the adverse action, and the temporal connection to the workers' comp filing. The employer files an Answer; the parties conduct discovery (interrogatories, requests for production, depositions); the Van Nuys workers' comp judge hears the petition at trial. A finding for the Glendale worker results in reinstatement, back pay, the $10,000 increase in compensation, and costs.
Injured at work in Glendale? Call (661) 273-1780
Tap to call →Glendale California Labor Code §132a and California Labor Code §244 petitions are filed at the Van Nuys district office of the Workers' Compensation Appeals Board at 6150 Van Nuys Boulevard, Van Nuys. Yazdchi Law appears at the Van Nuys WCAB on Glendale retaliation petitions regularly, including those involving hospital schedule cuts after a patient-handling claim, retail terminations after a slip-and-fall filing, and immigration-status threats against undocumented back-of-house workers. Related coverage: Glendale workers' comp settlements. See also: the California restaurant-worker statewide hub.
Under California Labor Code §3351, California workers' compensation coverage reaches every Glendale employee regardless of immigration status. Undocumented hospital food-service, housekeeping, retail, and hospitality workers have the same right to medical care under California Labor Code §4600, wage replacement under California Labor Code §4653, and permanent disability under California Labor Code §4660 as any other California worker. Under California Labor Code §244, the threat to report immigration status as retaliation is itself unlawful, and supports a California Labor Code §132a petition. Related coverage: Glendale back-injury workers' comp claims.
Under California Labor Code §5811, an injured Glendale worker pursuing a California Labor Code §132a or California Labor Code §244 petition has the right to a qualified Spanish or Armenian-language interpreter — at the employer's or insurer's expense — at every WCAB hearing, deposition, and medical-legal evaluation. The right is mandatory, and improper denial of a qualified interpreter is a basis for continuance and, in serious cases, sanctions.
Last reviewed by Eman Yazdchi, Esq., May 2026.
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