Wrongful Termination, Discrimination, Retaliation
Wrongful Termination • Discrimination • Retaliation
Wrongful Termination (Failure to Hire or Promote)
If you were terminated by your employer (or were not hired or promoted), you may have been terminated (or not hired or promoted) for a wrongful reason, which may entitle you either to money damages or to be reinstated with back pay. Generally, in New York, New Jersey and a vast majority of other states a private employer can terminate you for any reason or for no reason at all. However, your employer may not terminate you, refuse to hire or promote you, for certain discrete reasons specified in federal and state law, such as:
- you are of a certain race, national origin, gender (man, woman, LGBT)
- you practice a certain religion
- you are over forty (40) years old and your replacement is much younger
- you speak English with an accent
- you became pregnant and told the employer or the employer noticed your pregnancy
- you complained about discrimination or the hostile work environment which you or your co-workers experienced
- you complained about not being paid properly or about certain deductions from your paycheck
- you filed a discrimination complaint or testified on behalf of a co-worker who alleged discrimination in a court or administrative proceeding
Many employers are obviously too savvy to reveal the true reasons for your termination or lack of promotion. Generally, employers either do not give any reason at all, or give bogus reasons. For example, you may be told that: business is slow; there is not enough work and employees must be laid off; because of a reorganization, your position is being eliminated.
Often, computer programmers or other IT personnel are told that their department is being dissolved and job functions are outsourced to an outside company, usually one from India or China, and then are forced to train IT people from those countries to take over their job.
Discrimination and Reverse Discrimination
Any discrimination on the basis of characteristics enumerated below is illegal. If you are a victim, you have the right to claim compensation for your lost wages and benefits, and emotional distress.
- Age Discrimination
- Arrest and Conviction Discrimination
- Citizenship Status Discrimination
- Disability Discrimination including Failure to Accommodate
- Gender or Sex Discrimination
- Hostile Work Environment
- National Origin Discrimination
- Pregnancy Discrimination
- Race Discrimination
- Religious Discrimination
- Reverse Discrimination
- Sexual Harassment
- Sexual Orientation Discrimination
- Unemployment Discrimination
- Wrongful Termination
You may also have been a victim of reverse discrimination, which is discrimination perpetrated by minorities against members of a majority (such as by racial minorities against whites) or individuals belonging to historically disadvantaged group against others (such as by members of the LGBTQA+ community against straight people, or women against men, etc.).
Contact Robert Wisniewski at (212) 267-2102 to evaluate your potential entitlement to damages or reinstatement.
Retaliation
Federal, state and local laws protect employees from retaliatory conduct by the employer.
Retaliation in the workplace occurs when an employer (boss, manager, supervisor) punishes an employee for engaging in legally protected activity:
- seeking a raise or complaining about wage payment issues
- complaining against discrimination of yourself or others
- participating or testifying in an investigation of the employer for violations of wage and hour or discrimination laws
- disclosing or lodging a complaint about a hostile work environment
- refusing sexual advances of your superior
- terminating a consensual relationship with your superior
- getting pregnant
- reporting unsafe or dangerous work conditions
- reporting unsafe or dangerous conditions affecting the public
- reporting improper quality of patient care by healthcare professionals
- reporting tax fraud and health care fraud or other criminal activity
- disclosing fraud by the employer in the sale of goods/services to the government
- refusing to participate in fraudulent, criminal or illegal conduct
- disclosing deception or misrepresentation to shareholders, employees or clients
Retaliation may include any negative job action, such as demotion, discipline, firing, salary or wage reduction, or job or shift reassignment. But retaliation can also include more subtle conduct, such as increased supervision, the issuance of performance improvement plans, tendentious and negative evaluations, failure to permit vacation or leave because of unspecified workplace necessity, etc.
If you were a victim of retaliation, you may be entitled to reinstatement with all back pay and benefits or to money damages and other damages.
IMPORTANT:
Employers often offer miserly “severance pay” in exchange for signing a written promise not to sue the employer. In certain circumstances you must be given 21 days to consider signing any such documents and seven (7) days to rescind the documents after you already signed them. If you believe that you were wrongfully terminated, not hired or promoted, contact Robert Wisniewski at (212) 267-2102 to evaluate your rights.
