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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 Sylmar 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.
Sylmar's workforce mix puts retaliation pressure on workers whose schedules depend on a single hospital role, college job, or light-industrial line position — Olive View-UCLA nurses, CNAs, and back-of-house workers; Los Angeles Mission College maintenance, custodial, and food-service staff; Olympic and Foothill Boulevard food-processing and building-materials line workers; and the small-manufacturing workforce across the light-industrial corridor. Many of these workers are Spanish-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 Sylmar 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 35 miles north of Sylmar via the 14 and 5 — no Sylmar satellite office. Eman Yazdchi appears at the Van Nuys WCAB on Sylmar §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 Sylmar 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 fired after a California workers' comp claim practice. Statute deep-dive: California Labor Code §132a (anti-retaliation).
Under California Labor Code §132a, it is unlawful for a Sylmar 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 Sylmar employer — hospital, college subcontractor, light-industrial operator, food-processing operator — 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 Sylmar 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 Sylmar 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 Sylmar worker results in reinstatement, back pay, the $10,000 increase in compensation, and costs.
Injured at work in Sylmar? Call (661) 273-1780
Tap to call →Sylmar 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 15400 Sherman Way, Suite 500, Van Nuys. Yazdchi Law appears at the Van Nuys WCAB on Sylmar retaliation petitions regularly, including those involving hospital schedule cuts after a patient-handling claim, light-industrial terminations after a food-processing or warehouse injury, and immigration-status threats against undocumented back-of-house workers. Related coverage: Sylmar workers' comp settlements.
Under California Labor Code §3351, California workers' compensation coverage reaches every Sylmar employee regardless of immigration status. Undocumented hospital food-service, housekeeping, food-processing line, and back-of-house college 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: Sylmar back-injury workers' comp claims.
Under California Labor Code §5811, an injured Sylmar worker pursuing a California Labor Code §132a or California Labor Code §244 petition has the right to a qualified Spanish-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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