Taking Legal Action for Wrongful Termination

A wrongful termination can arise pursuant to an employer violation of a number of State and federal statutes such as the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Age Discrimination in Employment Act, Equal Pay Act, the Family Medical Leave Act, the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 concerning national origin discrimination, pregnancy/childbirth discrimination, race, color discrimination, religious discrimination, retaliation, sex discrimination, violation of whistleblower laws.

An employee considering taking legal action against a former employer must determine the following:

1. Whether or not he or she is an employee protected from discrimination under the law

Employees include people who actually work for an employer, persons who are former employees who have resigned or been fired and persons who are required to work in order to receive welfare benefits, workfare. Applicants for employment include people who applied for employment, people who were deterred from applying because the employer's discriminatory practices had created an atmosphere in which non-applicants understood it was fruitless to apply for employment, people posing as job applicants to gather evidence of discriminatory practices even if they never intended to accept the job for which they applied,  US citizens employed by most U.S. owned or controlled companies located in foreign countries, lawfully admitted resident aliens.

Employees or applicants for employment do not include volunteers that are unpaid are not employees, non-citizens employed overseas by US employers, and independent contractors.

2. Whether or not the employer is subject to anti-discrimination laws

Unlawful employment practices are prohibited when they are conducted by:

• Employers that have a minimum of 15 employees on their payroll. The 15 employees does not include independent contractors or partners.
• Employment agencies that affect employment opportunities.
• Labor organizations, in which employees participate and which deals with employers grievances, labor disputes, wages, rates of pay, hours or other terms or conditions of employment.
• Joint labor-management committees controlling job training programs.

3. Whether or not the employer’s conduct is considered discriminatory.

An employer may be discriminating against you if he or she is: failing or refusing to hire you, failing or refusing to refer you for employment, interfering with you employment opportunities with another employer, firing you, failing or refusing to give you pension benefits, denying you a raise or promotion, especially when raises are the norm for workers who perform satisfactory work, limiting, classifying, or segregating you in any way that deprives you of employment opportunities or otherwise adversely affect your employment or your potential employment status, refusing to select you for or discharging you from any program established to provide apprenticeship or other job training to you, or harassing an employee, creating a hostile work environment, intentionally creating objectively intolerable working conditions or knowingly allowing them to exist. 

An employer may not retaliate against you for complaining that they discriminated against you, or retaliate against you for testifying, or assisting or participating in any manner in any investigation, proceeding or hearing of a discrimination case.

4. Whether or not the reason your employer discriminated against you violated the law.

Employers cannot discriminate against an employee because of race, national origin, gender, religion and because of other characteristics. They also cannot discriminate against you because you associate with people who are of are of a race, national origin, gender, religion that they do not like.  In general employers are not allowed to discriminate against employees or applicants for employment in regards to any of the following characteristics:  Race or Color Discrimination, National Origin Discrimination, Sex and Gender Discrimination, Pregnancy Discrimination, Age Discrimination (if 40 or older), Physical or Mental Disability Discrimination, Religious Discrimination, and Military Status Discrimination.