WERE YOU DISCRIMINATED AGAINST AT WORK FOR YOUR AGE?
While most employers value experience, they do only up to a certain point. Many employees 40 years of age or older are victims of age discrimination on the job, whether this involves:
- Getting demoted to a lesser position in favor of a younger worker
- Being given complex work assignments by an employer that hopes this leads to the person leaving their job
- Seeing reduced hours or reduction in pay
While some workers may choose to walk away from their jobs or take whatever is thrown at them by their employer, others realize this behavior should not be tolerated. Federal law prohibits age discrimination in the workplace.
It is best to speak to a workers’ rights lawyer in Los Angeles at Mann & Elias if you believe that you are a victim of age discrimination and want to learn more about what is involved in filing a lawsuit.
Age Discrimination Lawsuits
If you are considering filing an age discrimination lawsuit against your employer, the Age Discrimination in Employment Act will be what ultimately determines how successful you may be in suing your employer.
This federal law contains many protections for older workers. To begin with, it prohibits companies from treating more senior employees less favorably than younger workers. It bars them from offering older workers fewer benefits, especially in health insurance and retirement plans. If you believe your employer violated the ADEA in their dealings with you, contact age discrimination lawyers in Los Angeles immediately.
State Laws
Many states also have laws prohibiting age discrimination by employers outside of the ADEA. In many situations, state laws actually afford employees greater protections and may also let employees seek a more diverse range of damages should they file a lawsuit. To make sure you know as much as possible about state laws regarding discrimination of this nature, never hesitate to contact discrimination attorneys for the workplace who will protect your rights.
First Comes the Complaint
While you may be upset with your employer and have decided to pursue an age discrimination lawsuit, you will not immediately pursue this course of action. Your first step will be to file an administrative complaint with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). While you can choose to do this on your own, hiring an employment attorney in LA from Mann & Elias is much more beneficial to assist you in the process. Since you will need to explain your case in great detail to the EEOC, having an experienced attorney by your side can enable you to lay out the specific facts of your case to EEOC investigators.
Going to Court
Once you have filed your complaint with the EEOC and received an answer, you are then free to pursue an age discrimination lawsuit directed against your employer if you so desire. Regardless of how the EEOC rules your case, you have the right to pursue a lawsuit against your employer. Once you receive the findings of the EEOC and its right-to-sue notice, you will have 90 days in which to file your claim. Since it is likely you will have many questions along the way, rely on the advice of discrimination attorneys who Los Angeles employees respect for fighting hard in these cases.
Always Have Strong Evidence
Like any lawsuit, whichever side has the most compelling and convincing evidence is usually the party that prevails. Therefore, always have strong evidence of age discrimination committed by your employer against you. This should include witness statements, emails, and other documents given to you by your employer, performance evaluations, and anything else you deem essential to your case. In most situations, when an employer discriminates against you, they have done so against others in the past. By working hand-in-hand with workplace Los Angeles lawyers for ageism, your attorneys can likely find other instances of age discrimination that have existed for many years. Once done, it becomes much easier to convince a judge and jury that your case has merit.
Mediation
While some of these cases do go to trial, many others go instead to mediation. Usually, between the time an EEOC complaint gets filed and a trial would begin, mediation allows you to settle your case out-of-court, which can have many advantages. Among these is allowing you to retain much more control over the decision-making process in a private setting. When the case goes to trial it then becomes a matter of public record.
If you are still deciding if you need a lawyer for age discrimination in Los Angeles, you likely do. Since employers will have no problem at all suddenly making you appear to be nothing more than a disgruntled employee who is mad about not getting a raise or promotion, don’t pursue litigation with inexperienced attorneys on your side. Instead discuss your dilemma in more detail by consulting soon with a LA lawyer for workplace discrimination.