Do California’s Court Closures Affect Employee Lawsuits?

Employment Attorney – During the last five years, California’s courts have lost 65% of their general funding. Many courts in Los Angeles, San Diego, and San Bernardino have closed. Hours have been cut, and court fees have skyrocketed. Only 1% of California’s general fund goes to it’s judicial branch (which happens to be the largest court system in the nation…btw). In Los Angeles, 67 courtrooms have been closed and 500 court jobs have been lost.

What does this mean for the average employee seeking justice? The answer is simple – it will take longer. If you are an employee and you want to sue your employer it will take much longer to get to trial.

The California Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye decried the dramatic decrease in funding for state courts. The situation is so dire that California, “normally a leader in social justice, may now be facing a civil rights crisis,” she said.

But Governor Brown has not listened. Gov. Brown’s 2013 proposed budget does not restore any of the lost funding, and the court system has had to postpone rebuilding dilapidated and unsafe courthouses. Rising fines and fees for filings threaten to make California’s court system “a user-fee institution” that particularly hurts those with lower incomes.

If you are an employee seeking an employment lawyer, should this bother you? Yes, but it should not dissuade you from seeking an attorney. You might have other options available, such as arbitration or mediation. Contact an employment lawyer as soon as possible.

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One Response to Do California’s Court Closures Affect Employee Lawsuits?

  1. ryan

    Amazing that the US has a budget crisis to address representing employees, a plethora of high school students who can’t afford college, homeless Vets dying in the streets, and elderly and disabled that need home care, but we are giving 1 billion dollars to a foreign country that has nothing to do with benefiting Americans in desperate need. Just shows you what a flipping joke our government really is. We are told time and time again there are “budget cuts” for helping AIDS victims, elderly and disabled, but we have plenty of money right now, to quickly send to a foreign country that we have no business getting involved with, since we can’t even handle our OWN PROBLEMS here in the USA, regarding the DISGRACEFUL conditions our military VETS, elderly and disabled citizens’s live in daily. What a JOKE>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>NEVER ever should we believe the LIES from our US government that we need to “CUT” programs for disabled and elderly when we can so QUICKLY send a BILLION dollars to a country that we has NOTHING TO DO with our US citizens RIGHT HERE< RIGHT NOW who need HELP.

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