Employment Law: Discrimination And Hostility

Law Blog

Work should be a safe space. If you have faced discrimination or hostility at work, an employment lawyer can help you seek damages in court.

Here are some of the ways that an employment lawyer can help you if you endured a hostile or discriminatory work environment.

Discrimination

Discrimination is characterized by a lack of equality based on someone's race, gender, sexual orientation, or other features. Although a single act of discrimination might be attributed to the action of an employee, not the employer, a pattern of discrimination can constitute as negligence.

  • Categorizing: the first task your employment lawyer is likely to undertake is establishing the type(s) of discrimination you faced while on the job. This can range from racial to sexual discrimination and might include several forms of discrimination. Narrowing down the type of discrimination to build your case on will help your employment lawyer focus on weaving together a pattern of discrimination that focuses on specific type(s) of discrimination.
  • Policies: one of the biggest ways you can help your employment lawyer build a stronger discrimination case is by sharing your employers internal human resource policies, documents, and memos. Sharing this evidence can help your employment lawyer prove that your employer either: 1) Didn't create policies to prevent the discrimination from happening and/or 2) Did not follow the policies they established to deal with discrimination in the workplace. Once your employment attorney is able to pinpoint the ways that your employer failed you, they can build a body of evidence that can compel a juror and/or your employer to settle for punitive damages.
  • Evidence: substantiating discrimination can be the trickiest part of a discrimination lawsuit. Proving that that a pattern of discrimination occurred can involve conflicting narratives about both fact and intent. Text messages, emails, social media interactions, and other correspondences that show discrimination or relate to the discrimination can be the difference between a quick settlement and a protracted legal battle. The quicker your case can be settle, the less you will pay in legal fees.

Hostility

A hostile work environment is slightly different than a discriminatory work environment. For instance, if your employer bullied or intimated you to do things that jeopardized your health, safety, ethics, or morals, it can be argued that they have created a hostile workplace. Most employment lawsuits related to hostile work environments involve allegations of unjust termination and/or a lack of merited promotions. If you plan on filing an employment lawsuit related to a hostile work environment, you must have proof to share with your employment lawyer.

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20 December 2021