Employment discrimination can be difficult to prove and root out, but when there is good evidence of what happened to you, you can stand to benefit significantly from a discrimination lawsuit. Our attorneys can investigate the situation and help you bring discrimination lawsuits to reimburse you for lost earnings and other damages you faced because of discrimination.
Discrimination does not always mean wrongful termination, as you can sue for all kinds of adverse employment actions and other harm from workplace discrimination. From cases involving bullying and harassment to wrongful termination to pay discrimination, our lawyers can help.
Contact Leeson & Leeson’s employment discrimination lawyers at (610) 890-6332 for a free case assessment.
What Do You Need to Prove in an Employment Discrimination Case in Bethlehem, PA?
Generally, employment discrimination cases need to show a few elements to make out a “prima facie” case – a “first glance” case. If our employment discrimination lawyers can prove each element, we can win your case. The specific elements might change a bit depending on which state or federal statute is being used and what specific adverse employment action you faced, but this general framework still applies:
Employee Belong to a Protected Class
“Protected classes” are defined under various federal and state legislation as well as local ordinances. The specific statute you are using to find your protected class will change what court your case is filed in and may affect what specific elements need to be proven, too.
Protected classes under various legislation include race, sex, religion, national origin, age, disability, former military service, political affiliation, and more. If you belong to a protected class and were discriminated against based on that, that is illegal.
Some protected classes are also defined specifically to avoid employers trying to skirt protections. For example, courts found that sex discrimination did not include pregnancy discrimination, so specific legislation was added to protect pregnant workers and workers who might become pregnant from discrimination on that basis. Similarly, color discrimination, gender discrimination, and sexual orientation discrimination protect against discrimination that might be unique from race or sex discrimination.
Protection can also extend to a perceived belonging to a protected class. For example, if an employer thinks someone has a “foreign-sounding name” and treats them negatively because they think they are from another country, that could qualify as discrimination even if they factually are from Bethlehem.
Employee Was Otherwise Qualified
Employees cannot claim they were discriminated against if there were other reasons they were rejected from a position, kept from promotions, transferred, or otherwise subjected to negative decisions at work. However, there is a fine line here.
Employers will often try to lay the groundwork for later discriminatory actions by stacking up evidence (real or exaggerated) of tardiness, excessive absences, rejected work, or other pretextual excuses. In many cases, these rounds of negative actions could simply be seen as targeting you with discrimination if they do not fire other employees with similar lists of violations or do not deem the same actions violations when other workers do them.
Employee Faced Adverse Employment Action
You need to have something bad happen to you at work to sue for discrimination. If you kept your job, kept your head down, and grew and flourished at work, it will be hard to convince a court that you were discriminated against. Things like harassment have their own negative emotional and mental effects you can sue for, but other cases need to be based on some kind of termination, demotion, or other negative decision against you.
“Adverse employment action” is a broad term that can encompass pay disparity, disciplinary actions, transfers, and many other actions short of firing. A recent case also held that a transfer does not need to cause “significant harm” to qualify as an adverse employment action in a Title VII claim, potentially signaling that the bar is not very high for what qualifies as “negative.”
Other Similar Employees Outside Class Were Treated More Favorably
If everyone else was treated badly, too, then it is not discriminatory. You often need to show that what happened to you was special and different compared to what happened to other employees outside of your protected class.
Sometimes protections like the ban on color discrimination or national origin discrimination can help show this difference by highlighting that employees of your same race might not have faced the same discrimination you did, but you were discriminated against because your skin was dark or you were an immigrant rather than because of your race alone. The same might be true of gender and sexual orientation discrimination, by showing that other women were not mistreated but you were as a trans woman or by showing that other workers attracted to men were not mistreated but you were as a gay man.
Sometimes, the way that you show the negative impact on people of color or other minorities highlights a broader disparate impact, which often requires a different formulation for your overall case and may help show broader trends of discrimination in your industry or workplace.
Damages for Workplace Discrimination in Bethlehem, PA
When you are discriminated against, it can be painful, emotionally and mentally. This creates its own damages you may be entitled to sue for, alongside the economic damages you faced from the discrimination. Having unequal pay or being demoted can be compensated with monetary damages to bring you back to the economic state you should have been in if you were not discriminated against. When it comes to wrongful termination, you may also be able to seek lost benefits and damages for expenses you needed to pay to seek out new work. Additionally, the mental and emotional distress of discrimination has its own damages to claim.
Punitive damages are often available as well to punish the employer for what they did. The strongest cases of employment discrimination show that the discrimination was no mere oversight or accident, and employers should be punished for this kind of intentional discrimination. Caps might apply to these damages depending on the legislation that authorizes the lawsuit.
Call Our Bethlehem Employment Discrimination Attorneys Today
Call (610) 890-6332 for a free case assessment with the employment discrimination lawyers at Leeson & Leeson today.