Process
You Got a Right to Sue Letter. What It Means and What to Do
The letter is permission, not a verdict. Everything on this page serves one clock.
The Short Answer
The letter closes the file at the Civil Rights Department, the state agency that handles discrimination complaints, and opens a one year window to file a FEHA lawsuit in court. Miss the year and the claim dies regardless of how strong it was.
What the Letter Is, and What It Is Not
It is the exhaustion receipt required by California’s Fair Employment and Housing Act (FEHA), the state’s main workplace discrimination law, before you can go to court.
It is not a merit finding, a case evaluation, or a settlement offer. This matters because readers assume a closed file means a weak case. Most letters issue without any investigation at all, including every immediate letter an attorney requests on a client’s behalf.
Your One Year Clock, Exactly
The clock runs from the letter’s issue date. “Filing” means a complaint filed in court, not a consultation with a lawyer.
Waiting even a few months costs you leverage that does not come back. Witnesses scatter, memories fade, documents get purged on retention schedules, and defense counsel can smell a deadline from a long way off.
Your Three Options Now
Hire a Lawyer on Contingency, No Fee Unless You Win
Letter holders are attractive cases because exhaustion is already done. A contingency firm charges no fee unless it recovers for you, so the consultation costs you nothing to find out.
File It Yourself
Honestly, this is hard. Pleading standards, service requirements, demurrers, and discovery against experienced defense firms are all real obstacles. It can be done. It is rarely done well without help.
Watch for the Federal Wrinkle
An EEOC right to sue carries a 90 day clock, not one year. If you are holding federal paper, that shorter deadline governs and it is easy to miss.
Deadlines. 1 year from the issue date on a California right to sue letter. 90 days on a letter from the EEOC, the federal agency that handles job discrimination complaints. If you hold both, the shorter one controls that claim. Full deadline table
Frequently Asked Questions
Can I go back and reopen the investigation?
In practice the letter route is one way. The file is closed.
Does the letter expire if I do nothing?
The letter does not expire so much as the claim does, at one year from the issue date.
My letter is ten months old.
Come in now. Some cases file within days. No promises, but move today rather than next week.
Employment Law Resources
- Government Code section 12965, FEHA right to sue and the one year deadline
- California Civil Rights Department, right to sue notices
- U.S. EEOC, the 90 day suit deadline
Tell Us What Happened
One business day for a response. You pay nothing unless we win.