Pasadena employment firm D.Law says workers should think twice before signing severance agreements, especially if they are weighing legal action, facing pressure to sign, or seeing restrictive terms.
Those agreements often trade severance pay or continued health coverage for a release of claims, which can block wrongful-termination or other workplace lawsuits.
California workers also should check whether a package offers anything beyond wages, accrued vacation and fully earned commissions, which employers already must pay at termination.
Declining to sign usually means giving up the severance benefits in the contract, but it also avoids new obligations such as claim waivers or competitor restrictions that D.Law says may appear even though non-competes are generally unenforceable in California.