Chino Employment Lawyer

Where a Chino case is filed — there is no Chino courthouse

Chino once had its own courthouse. The Superior Court closed it to the public in December 2012, and in 2015 the Judicial Council took up disposing of its interest in the building as surplus so the County could sell it to the City for the civic center. The court’s current list of locations has no Chino entry.

For Chino, unlike neighboring Ontario, the court’s published venue lists agree with each other. The “Civil Division of the Rancho Cucamonga District,” 8303 Haven Avenue, names “Chino and Chino Hills” among the areas it serves, and lists “Civil (limited and unlimited),” “Labor Board Appeals” and “Writ of Mandate” among the matters it accepts. An employment lawsuit from a Chino workplace goes there. The Fontana District also lists Chino — but only for small claims, limited landlord-tenant, restraining orders and similar matters, not civil suits.

Only three San Bernardino County Superior Court locations accept filings labeled “Civil (limited and unlimited)” — the Civil Divisions of the San Bernardino, Rancho Cucamonga and Victorville Districts. The nearest courthouse is often not the right one.

Federal claims go to the Eastern Division of the Central District of California, at the George E. Brown, Jr. Federal Building, 3470 Twelfth Street, Riverside.

Working in Chino

Chino is a working city whose job base has shifted from dairies to distribution. The most recent city-level breakdown from a government source (SCAG Local Profiles, 2017 data) counts 48,954 jobs located in the city. The share held by transportation and warehousing rose from 9.7 percent to 14.8 percent between 2007 and 2017, while manufacturing — still 14.5 percent of jobs — shed 11.2 percent over the same decade. Professional, scientific, management and administrative services were the largest sector at 15.4 percent, retail was 13.7 percent, and wholesale trade another 8.1 percent. Agriculture had fallen to half a percent.

The dairy legacy is still on the map. The Preserve — roughly 5,435 acres of former and existing farm and dairy property annexed to the city in July 2003 — is being built out with about half its area going to residential, commercial, industrial and airport-related development. The airport is Chino Airport, operated by the County, which describes it as the largest and busiest general aviation airport in San Bernardino County, with more than 100,000 flight operations a year and nearly 400 business tenants. The County runs the field, but the tenant businesses are separate employers.

We represent the people — employees of all walks of life and employment sectors. Call or reach out to discuss your particular situation. Our About page sets out who we represent.

Warehouse and distribution work brings a specific set of problems: time spent on security screening, equipment collection or shift handover that may or may not be on the clock; productivity quotas that make meal and rest periods difficult to take; overtime calculation across shift differentials and bonuses; and staffing-agency arrangements that make it unclear who the employer is. California addressed the quota problem directly. Under Labor Code § 2101, a covered warehouse employer must give each employee, at hire, a written description of every quota they are subject to, and under § 2102 no quota may prevent compliance with meal or rest periods or the use of bathroom facilities. The law applies to employers with 100 or more employees at a single warehouse distribution center, or 1,000 or more statewide — counting workers placed through a staffing agency.

Chino has no local minimum wage ordinance; its municipal code contains no wage chapter, so the state rate governs. That rate is $16.90 per hour since January 1, 2026, and the Department of Industrial Relations has announced it will rise to $17.40 on January 1, 2027. A pay stub still showing the old rate after New Year’s Day is a wage claim, not a rounding error.