A California wage and hour lawyer helps workers who were shorted on pay. That covers unpaid overtime, missed breaks, off-the-clock work, unpaid expenses, and a final check that never came. California wage rules are stricter than federal ones, and the penalties often add up to more than the missing wages.
Shorted on pay, breaks, or your last check? Talk to a California wage and hour lawyer today. The case review is free, and you owe nothing. Contact us today.
Fired Unfairly works with California wage and hour lawyers who fight for workers, not bosses. Most people find this page doing math at the kitchen table. The hours do not match the check. The salary was supposed to mean no overtime. The last paycheck is three weeks late. Any of that can be a claim. For the wider view, start with our California employment attorney page.
A California wage and hour lawyer reconstructs what you were actually owed, compares it to what you were paid, and adds the penalties the law attaches. Most of what a California wage and hour lawyer does here is math backed by records, not argument.
These claims are quieter than a firing case. Nobody yells. The money just goes missing a little at a time, week after week, until a year of small gaps turns into a real number.
The good news is that the proof usually exists. Time records, pay stubs, schedules, and clock-in data are all things your boss had to keep. A California wage and hour lawyer can get them, even the ones you never saw.
Wage claims also travel in groups. If your boss did it to you, it likely did it to your whole crew. That can turn one claim into a much larger case. A California wage and hour lawyer will ask about your coworkers early.
California pays overtime by the day, not just the week. You earn time and a half past 8 hours in a day, past 40 in a week, and for the first 8 hours of a seventh straight workday. Double time starts past 12 hours in a day. Labor Code § 510 sets it out, and a California wage and hour lawyer will run your shifts against it.
Daily overtime is the big gap between state and federal law. Federal law only counts the week. So a 12-hour day followed by three short days can pay zero federal overtime and still owe you four hours of California overtime.
The state minimum wage is $16.90 an hour in 2026. Some cities set it higher, and the local rate wins. A California wage and hour lawyer checks the city rate, not just the state one.
Overtime is figured on your regular rate, not your base rate. Nondiscretionary bonuses, shift differentials, and commissions get folded in. Bosses get this wrong constantly. It undercuts every overtime hour you worked, so bring your bonus records to a California wage and hour lawyer.
A salary alone does not make you exempt. In 2026 you must earn at least $70,304 a year, and more than half your time must be spent on real management or professional work. Fail either test and you are owed overtime, no matter what your title says. A California wage and hour lawyer can check both.
Misclassification is the most common wage problem in the state. An assistant manager who spends the shift on the floor stocking and ringing up customers is not exempt, whatever the offer letter says.
Run your salary against those numbers. If it falls short, call a California wage and hour lawyer, because every overtime hour for the past three years may be owed.
You get a 30-minute unpaid meal break before the end of your fifth hour, and a second one if you work over 10 hours. You also get a paid 10-minute rest break for every four hours. Miss one, and your boss owes an extra hour of pay for that day. A California wage and hour lawyer counts every one of those days.
That extra hour is a premium, and it is per day and per type. A day with both a missed meal and a missed rest break owes two hours. Across a year of short-staffed shifts, that adds up fast.
A break has to be a real break. If you stay on the clock, keep the radio on, or eat at your desk while covering the phones, that is not a meal period. It is paid work time, and the premium is still owed. Describe your typical lunch to a California wage and hour lawyer.
Waiving a meal break is allowed in narrow cases, and only by your choice. A blanket waiver in a handbook does not count. Bring the handbook to a California wage and hour lawyer.
Wage theft is any pay the law required that you did not receive. It rarely looks like theft. It looks like rounding, an unpaid pre-shift routine, a deduction you did not agree to, or a pay stub that hides more than it shows. A California wage and hour lawyer knows where to look.
Small amounts still count. California rejected the idea that a few minutes a day are too small to bother with. Ten minutes a shift over two years is real money, and a California wage and hour lawyer will run the total.
Yes. Labor Code § 2802 requires your boss to cover what you spend to do the job. That includes mileage, your cell phone bill, home internet, tools, and required uniforms. A reasonable share of a personal bill counts, even if you would have paid it anyway, and a California wage and hour lawyer can figure that share.
The phone rule surprises people most. If you take work calls or texts on your own phone, some share of that bill is owed. The same goes for home internet if you work remotely. A California wage and hour lawyer sees these claims often.
Mileage between job sites is reimbursable. Your ordinary commute is not. A California wage and hour lawyer can tell the two apart in your schedule.
Penalties start running. If you are fired, your final check is due that day. If you quit with 72 hours notice, it is due your last day. Under Labor Code § 203, a late check can cost your boss up to 30 days of your wages on top of what it owed. A California wage and hour lawyer will add that in.
Those waiting time penalties are often the largest single piece of a small wage case. Thirty days of pay for a worker earning $25 an hour runs past $6,000 on its own.
Unused vacation counts as wages in California and must be paid out. Use-it-or-lose-it policies are not allowed here. Sick leave is treated differently, so ask a California wage and hour lawyer about both.
If your last check was short or late, tell a California wage and hour lawyer the exact date you were let go and the date the money landed.
Both are options and they suit different cases. The Labor Commissioner is free, informal, and does not require a lawyer. Court is slower but reaches larger claims, group cases, and legal fees. A California wage and hour lawyer can tell you which path fits your numbers.
The Labor Commissioner route works well for a clean, smaller claim. You file, there is a conference, then a hearing before a hearing officer. Many workers handle it alone. Others bring a California wage and hour lawyer for the hearing.
Court makes more sense when the claim is large, when several coworkers are affected, or when penalties stack. Fee shifting matters here too. Under Labor Code § 1194, a worker who wins overtime or minimum wage can recover legal fees, which changes what a company is willing to pay.
There is a third path for group penalty claims brought on the state's behalf. Those are their own animal, and a California wage and hour lawyer will tell you if your facts fit.
Most unpaid wage claims run three years. Penalty claims run one year. Written contract claims run four, and unfair business practice claims run four. The clock runs backward from the day you file, so waiting costs you the oldest weeks first.
That last point is the one to hold onto. This is not a deadline that kills the case all at once. It shaves it. Every month you wait, another month of unpaid overtime drops off the back end, which is why a California wage and hour lawyer will push you to file.
Public workers face a tighter squeeze. A claim against a city, county, or school district usually needs a government claim within six months.
Retaliation for asking about your pay has its own short clock and its own claim. Speaking up about wages is protected, and punishing you for it is retaliation.
Value is the unpaid wages, plus interest, plus the penalties the law attaches, plus legal fees. Penalties frequently exceed the wages themselves, and a California wage and hour lawyer will price all of them. A $4,000 overtime gap can resolve for several times that once premiums, wage statement penalties, and waiting time penalties are added.
Here is what stacks onto the base amount:
Group cases change the math again. When a whole shift or a whole store was treated the same way, a California wage and hour lawyer may pursue it as one action rather than many.
Bring your pay stubs, your schedules, any time records you can reach, your offer letter, the handbook, and texts about hours or shift changes. If you kept your own notes on hours worked, bring those to your California wage and hour lawyer too.
Your own records count even when they are informal. A phone note listing your real start and end times can carry weight, especially when the company's records are incomplete.
Gather it now. You have a right to your pay records under Labor Code § 226 and your personnel file under § 1198.5, and it is easier to request them before a dispute is open.
Do not worry about gaps. A California wage and hour lawyer can fill them through the case.
Cases move through four stages: records, math, filing, and talks or trial. Wage cases lean harder on stage two than any other kind, because the number a California wage and hour lawyer builds is what moves the company.
Related claims often ride along. A firing after you raised a pay issue may be wrongful termination. Misclassification may pair with denied leave under FMLA rules. A California wage and hour lawyer will file them together.
Usually not. Most California wage and hour lawyers who take worker cases work on contingency. No fee is owed unless you recover money. Case reviews through Fired Unfairly are free, and someone who is already being underpaid should not have to pay by the hour to fix it.
Contingency works well here because the law shifts fees to the company when you win. A firm paid this way takes cases with real proof and real losses, then fronts the cost of records and filing until the case ends. Any California wage and hour lawyer you hire will put the fee terms in writing first.
Fired Unfairly is not a law firm. It is a free service. Tell us what happened with your pay, and we match you with a California wage and hour lawyer who handles these claims, in your industry, near the county where you worked.
The match matters. A trucking case turns on different rules than a restaurant case. A claim covering a whole warehouse crew needs a firm that runs group actions. Sending every call to one firm helps that firm, not the worker.
Any California wage and hour lawyer you speak with holds their own license and answers for their own advice. Sending your facts here does not create an attorney-client relationship. There is no charge and no obligation.
Talk to a California wage and hour lawyer today. The review is free, you owe nothing, and it takes just a few minutes to start.
If the hours do not match the check, act soon. Every month you wait drops another month off the back of the claim. Tell us what happened, and a California wage and hour lawyer will look at your numbers at no cost. Contact us today.
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