Equal Pay Lawyer in Rancho Cucamonga

Representing Employees in Equal Pay Act Claims Across San Bernardino County

Newman & Allen has represented employees throughout Rancho Cucamonga and San Bernardino County since 1996. Our employment law attorneys represent workers who believe they’re being paid less than colleagues performing substantially similar work in violation of California’s Equal Pay Act. If that describes your situation, we’d like to hear about it.

What California’s Equal Pay Act Prohibits

California Labor Code Section 1197.5 forbids employers from paying employees less than employees of a different sex, race, or ethnicity for substantially similar work. That standard is a composite of skill, effort, and responsibility performed under similar working conditions. It doesn’t require the same job title, and it allows comparisons across an employer’s multiple locations.

California’s law is broader than the federal Equal Pay Act in two important ways. The federal law addresses only sex-based pay gaps and traditionally limits comparisons to workers at the same physical establishment. California extends protection to race- and ethnicity-based pay differences and lets employees compare their compensation to workers at other company sites.

Signs a Pay Violation May Have Occurred

Pay discrimination isn’t always visible at first. Some common indicators:

• A pay gap with a comparable coworker: You learn a coworker of a different sex, race, or ethnicity is earning more for work that requires the same skill, effort, and responsibility.
• A starting salary set by salary history: Your employer based your initial pay on what you earned at a prior job rather than on the market rate for the role, leaving you below colleagues doing comparable work.
• A blocked pay scale request: California law gives you the right to request the pay scale for your current position. An employer who refuses or retaliates when you ask may be violating that rule.
• Pressure to stay quiet about pay: Employers can’t bar employees from discussing or asking about wages. Policies that discourage those conversations may violate the law.

How Employers Can Justify a Pay Difference

An employer facing an equal pay claim can defend the gap, but the defenses are narrow. California permits a pay difference only when it results from a seniority system, a merit system, a system measuring quantity or quality of production, or a bona fide factor other than sex, race, or ethnicity, such as education, training, or experience.

A bona fide factor defense doesn’t apply simply because the employer can name one. The employer must show the factor isn’t rooted in a discriminatory differential, that it’s job-related, that it’s consistent with business necessity, and that it accounts for the entire wage gap. Once an employee demonstrates unequal pay for substantially similar work, the burden shifts to the employer to prove one of these exceptions applies.

Filing Deadlines & What a Successful Claim Can Recover

A civil action under the California Equal Pay Act must generally be filed within three years of the last date a violation occurred. If a violation ran for years before you discovered it, the recoverable wage period can extend back up to six years.

A successful claim can produce meaningful recovery:

• The wage differential plus interest
• Liquidated damages in an amount equal to the unpaid wages
• Reasonable attorney’s fees and costs

Retaliation claims connected to raising a pay concern carry a shorter window: generally one year from the retaliatory act. Deadlines matter, so the sooner you get clarity on your situation, the better.

How Newman & Allen Approaches Equal Pay Act Cases

Founding attorneys Geoff Newman and JC Allen both served as prosecutors before building this firm. That background shapes how we approach evidence in wage disputes: we review pay records, comparator documentation, and employer justifications the same way we’d examine any timeline or set of statements for internal inconsistencies. If an employer’s stated reason for a pay gap doesn’t hold up against its own records, we can identify those issues.

We build a personalized strategy for each client. Our goal is to present your full story to decision-makers, whether that’s in negotiations before a case reaches trial or in the San Bernardino County Superior Court’s Rancho Cucamonga District. You won’t be treated as a file number here.