Employment Lawyers

Proving discrimination in the workplace is more or less the same whether the discrimination is based on race, age, sex, national origin, or anything else that is illegal. Employement lawyers and law firms.

This is a very basic guide to how discrimination in the workplace cases are proven. Every employment law case is different, which means this basic guide may not apply to every case. (For instance, in disability discrimination in the workplace, other factors, such as "reasonable accommodation" are at issue. Employement lawyers and law firms.  A "reasonable accommodation" is when the employer modifies the job duties, provides some extra help, or takes some other measure to ensure that the person can still be able to do the job despite their disability).

First, the employee must show that:
1. he/she is a member of a "protected class", and
2. he/she suffered an "adverse employment action". Employement lawyers and law firms.

The specific categories which are protected are spelled out in particular laws, or statutes, such as the FEHA. Because gender, or sex, is one protected category, all employees, at least the human ones, are protected by at least one category. Many people fall into more than one protected category. Employement lawyers and law firms.

An adverse employment action is any action by an employer that has a negative impact on the employee's job. This can be just about anything relating to someone's job: termination of employment, demotion, unwanted shift change, hour cuts, etc.

C. The Employer Once an employee proves the above, the employer must then show that there was a legitimate, non-discriminatory, reason for the adverse employment action. For example: an employer contends that an employee was fired because of down sizing, not because the employee was Hispanic. If true, that is a perfectly legal reason to fire someone. Just because the employee is Hispanic does not mean that you can never terminate him/her; it just means that you can't fire him/her because of that employee is Hispanic. D. Back to the Employee Once the employer has offered a legitimate reason for a legal termination, the employee can then attempt to show that the employer's stated reason was not the real reason that the employer was fired and that the stated reason was simply a pretext. In the down sizing example, if employees position was not eliminated, and if on the same day he/she was fired, the employer hires someone else as a replacement, there clearly was no downsizing. The employers reason was pretext.