Home » Our Attorneys » Darin Ranahan
Darin Ranahan is a partner in the firm. He represents workers, retirees, people with disabilities, and public benefit participants in claims of discrimination, failure to pay overtime, failure to pay pension, disability, and healthcare benefits, and breach of fiduciary duty. In addition, he represents unions in employee benefits, healthcare justice, and civil rights advocacy.
Mr. Ranahan was previously an associate attorney at Lewis, Feinberg, Lee & Jackson, P.C. From 2012 to 2013, he served as a law clerk to Judge Edward M. Chen of the United States District Court for the Northern District of California. Prior to that he practiced employment law at a firm in Oakland, where he primarily represented workers in wrongful termination, discrimination, and wage and hour matters.
During law school, Mr. Ranahan was a law clerk with the East Bay Community Law Center’s Community Economic Justice clinic and the Legal Aid Society—Employment Law Center.
Significant Cases
- Jimenez Perea v. Dooley
- Strauch v. Computer Sciences Corporation
- PG&E Company Retirement Plan
FJWW has extensive experience representing individuals seeking benefits under the PG&E Company Retirement Plan, in particular individuals who worked for PG&E but were misclassified as contract workers in the 1980s and 1990s, and thus were denied pension service credits for these years. These individuals met the common law definition of an “employee,” which focuses on the alleged employer’s right to control the manner and means by which work is accomplished. Attorneys at FJWW’s predecessor firm represented the plaintiffs in the landmark case of Burrey v. Pacific Gas & Electric Company, 159 F.3d 388 (9th Cir. 1998), in which the Ninth Circuit determined that an individual who was misclassified by PG&E as a contractor but was actually a PG&E employee under the standard used in the Internal Revenue Code would be eligible for service credits under the PG&E Company Retirement Plan.
Attorneys at FJWW have since represented a number of individuals seeking service credits for time spent working at PG&E while they were misclassified as contract workers, in particular individuals who worked at its Diablo Canyon Power Plant. In Sizemore v. Pacific Gas & Electric Retirement Plan, 952 F. Supp. 2d 894 (N.D. Cal. 2013), Dan Feinberg of FJWW represented a Diablo Canyon Power Plant worker who sought additional pension service credit for the time he was classified as a contractor. That matter subsequently settled on confidential terms. In Cooper v. Pacific Gas & Electric Company Retirement Plan, No. 16-6355 (N.D. Cal.), Dan Feinberg and Darin Ranahan of FJWW represented three individuals who were misclassified as non-employees by PG&E in the 1980s and 1990s when they actually were common law employees. For example, one individual worked in the Diablo Canyon Power Plant drafting department where he was effectively a PG&E employee in all but name, having Bechtel and Waltek as his employers of record. Another individual worked in Diablo Canyon Power Plant’s maintenance engineering and piping departments alongside PG&E employees, but was technically considered to be an employee of SUN.
*FJWW continues to investigate individuals’ rights to service credits in the PG&E pension plan for years in which they were misclassified as contract workers. If you believe that you may be owed service credits for time spent working for PG&E as a misclassified employee, please fill out our contact form here or call (510) 269-7998, ext. 7.
- Lindell v. Synthes
- Sonoma County Association of Retired Employees v. Sonoma County
- Moon v. Rush
- Tatum v. R.J. Reynolds
Civic Activities & Professional Associations
- Commissioner and Vice Chair on the City of Oakland Budget Advisory Commission
- Volunteer attorney for the East Bay Workers’ Rights Clinic
- Volunteer attorney for the Centro Legal de la Raza Workers’ Rights Clinic
- Member of the American Bar Association Section of Labor and Employment
- Member of the National Lawyers Guild and NLG Labor & Employment Committee
- Fellow in the New Leaders Council’s 2012 San Francisco class
Publications & Presentations
Contributing author to Bloomberg BNA’s ERISA Litigation treatise
Contributing author to ABA Employee Benefits Committee newsletter.
Panelist on June 2019 webinar, “A Deep Dive: Who Is an Employee?” sponsored by the ABA Joint Committee on Employee Benefits and the American College of Employee Benefits Counsel
Panelist at the 2013 Shaking the Foundations Conference at Stanford Law School
Other Languages Spoken
