In this day and age, people are more aware of their civil rights than ever. That means there are more lawsuits than ever. This includes in the workplace.

Gone are the days when employees were afraid to assert their personal and workplace rights. But what can you sue your employer for?

Employment Discrimination

“Discrimination” is a term that is used often. Within the last decade, employment law has updated definitions of what constitutes “discrimination”. Obvious acts of discrimination are unconstitutional and grounds for which to sue.
You must prove four things for employment discrimination:

• You must be part of the legally protected class
• You must be able to perform your job
• You must prove what negative employment action you suffered
• The negative employment action must have occurred because of your protected class

Whether it be sexual orientation, gender, race, religion, disability, familial status– it is not legal. If you are treated poorly or discriminated against as one of the protected classes, you may be eligible to sue your employer.

If the employer treats their employee differently, and it’s not based on true work performance, it constitutes as workplace discrimination. This can take the form of harassment, denial of reasonable workplace accommodations, inappropriate and improper questioning, and more.

Workplace Harassment

Workplace harassment has taken attention front and center the last few years, with the “Me Too” movement bringing forth stories across the nation of harassment in the workplace. Passing comments in the workplace and “jokes” that have basis in a protected class can actually be harassment and that is quite serious.

If a toxic workplace environment has caused you to feel threatened—whether physically or
mentally—you may have grounds to sue. Your employer should be protecting your rights as an employee, which includes providing a safe working environment.

Retaliation

If your employer retaliates against you for internally filing a complaint, it is grounds for a lawsuit. You cannot be retaliated against in preserving your employee rights.

Retaliation can come in the form of:

• Harassment
• Demotion
• Many schedule changes
• And more

As an employee, you are protected by law. You can now add retaliation onto your original complaint.

Defamation

It is imperative you have a deep understanding of what constitutes “defamation”. In order to sue for defamation, you must understand that true defamation only occurs when untrue statements are made regarding an employee.

Rude and derogatory remarks do not constitute defamation. It only happens when the untrue statement has caused the employee to lose their employment and/or their pay.

Personal Injury

If you are injured on the job, your workers’ compensation will immediately go into effect. However, when your employer mismanages the personal injury occurrence, you may have a legal claim.

Workers’ compensation is put in place to financially cover workplace incidents and their aftermaths. Tampering of the incident by the employer is a repercussion and is negligent to the rights of the protected employee.

Bottom Line

Employees have the right to a safe and healthy working environment. If any of your rights have been violated, you may have a lawsuit against your employer. You need a reputable lawyer to aggressively defend your legal rights.

Any negligence to you as an employee may be punishable by law. Call us today to discuss the details of your legal claim.