Mary C. Dollarhide

If NFL teams fine players this season for violating a new league policy that requires players to stand for the national anthem, could it be considered an adverse employment action based on their political activity?

In California, such an action could be seen as a violation of the state’s Labor Code, Dollarhide said, adding that the potential legal exposure is causing teams to consider absorbing the fines themselves.

“Some teams are thinking, ‘Maybe we should suck it up and pay the penalty as a team if somebody takes a knee,’” she said. “We’ll see how that shakes out this fall.”

The attorney became interested in political discrimination cases several years ago, when she began representing a large investment bank that was accused of terminating a financial adviser — who also held a full-time position as an elected official — on the basis of his political activity.

“What I found is there’s just a dearth of case law in this area,” she said. “What the California Labor Code protects is unclear when it comes to political activities.”

She won the case on appeal in the 9th Circuit U.S. court of Appeals two years ago. During oral arguments, Dollarhide argued that “it didn’t matter if he wanted to work at White Castle or the White House, he couldn’t have another full-time job and still work at the investment bank.”

Early in her 30-year career, Dollarhide primarily handled single-plaintiff harassment and discrimination cases, but has transitioned over time toward more wage and hour class actions. Dollarhide has tried cases in four states and has successfully argued appeals before the federal 2nd, 6th and 9th circuits.

The attorney, who studied acting before becoming a lawyer, sometimes gives talks and comments to the media on topics that interest her, including privacy issues related to the content employees upload to company servers. She once handled a case in which her client was accused of wrongfully discharging an employee, who claimed she was also sexually harassed by a member of the company. After a forensic specialist analyzed the company servers, he asked if Dollarhide wanted to know what was on the woman’s iPhone — which wasn’t a company phone. When Dollarhide asked how he obtained data from her personal device, the examiner said that the woman must have charged or synced the device with a company computer, which uploaded her personal data to the server.

“She had a bunch of nude photos of herself that she had sent to the guy she said was harassing her,” Dollarhide said. “We had all these text messages and we confronted her with them at the deposition, and very quickly the case settled.”

— Mark Armao