In case you are at least 40 years of age, the discrimination laws at the federal level and in California make it illegal for employers to reach an employment-associated decision because of your age. Nevertheless, as has been mentioned earlier, these age discrimination legal provisions at the federal and state levels apply exclusively to workers who are 40 years old at the least. A most common form of age discrimination is recruiting younger personnel rather than an older person because the younger person will demand a lower salary.
California Fair Employment and Housing Act
As with many other sorts of laws, California is a pacesetter when we talk about prohibiting age discrimination in the workplace. Sanctioned by the Californian legislature eight years before the enacting of the ADEA, the Fair Employment and Housing Act (FEHA) likewise shields workers against age discrimination who are at least 40 years of age. Even though the FEHA is identical to the ADEA, the FEHA protects employers who have only five personnel. Due to this, if you are in California, it is advised you preferably approach the FEHA due to the more equitable terms than the ADEA provides.
Establishing a claim against age discrimination
If it happens that your employer has discriminated against you because of you being 40 years or more, you may need to prove that your employer offended the FEHA and the ADEA. Tangible evidence together with accounts of witnesses stands for the most effective medium of proving age discrimination. The physical evidence may proceed from the form of employee records as well as the terms of work spelled out in the Work Manual. The accounts of witnesses can also establish that your employer took part in one or more of the significant unlawful discriminatory acts. Specifically, these are harassment, unfair discipline, lower wages, favoritism, absence of promotion, and withdrawal from company occasions.
Both the FEHA and ADEA forbid employers from exhibiting discrimination against job candidates due to their age. The means to prove this sort of discrimination is to place professional credentials between a younger job applicant and an older candidate.
Filing a Californian age discrimination claim
Getting in touch with a labor attorney in California remains the initial step to bringing a worthy claim against age discrimination. With the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) and the Department of Fair Employment in California, our attorney can assist you in filing a claim against discrimination. You will need to file some claim against age discrimination anytime before the statute of limitations gets to its expiry date. Or else, the agency tasked with conducting a review of your matter will dismiss it.
On processing your claim, the agency that processes it will need to issue a right-to-sue letter that declares that you have fulfilled all prerequisites that underline filing some claim with the right agency. Once more, you need to file a right-to-sue letter before the statute of limitations expires. Recruiting a labor discrimination attorney helps you ensure you are filing your pre-action notice before the deadline imposed by the government agency. Sometimes, if not every time, employers will not come over to let you know that they are terminating your employment due to your age. There are several ways to establish that an employee is being discriminated against due to their age. These include:
- Sacking workers who have been in the employ of the company for a long time
- Relieving employees who earn a greater salary
- Comments or jokes regarding the age of an employee
- Strange changes in reviews of job performance
- Elevating a ‘younger’ corporate custom
- Imposing retirement for employees that are older
- Retaliating against employees for reporting discrimination against their colleagues that are older
Available remedies in an employment discrimination suit in California
The damages that are accessible for you in an age discrimination suit all have to do with the associated discrimination type. Generally, the remedies are obtainable for employment discrimination will allow the victim to get back to the state they were before the violation occurred. It often takes into account monetary damages, fair damages, and punitive damages. These damages from work discrimination may account for losses that transpired from higher-income coming from a promotion, back pay and back wages, higher income, benefits, pension benefits, bonus payments, suffering and pain, and/or emotional distress.
When an employer knowingly discriminates against an employee due to their age, the employee may be qualified to get liquidated damages. This type of damage is a way of punishing the acts of the offender and can help prevent the employer(s) from partaking in a similar wrongful attitude in time to come. In the event the employee has been fired due to their age, another way to remedy it may be for the court to re-employ the worker. Also, the court may go as far as providing for remedies such as elevating the employee or ordering a pay raise for them.
Nevertheless, these alternatives are usually not that preferred. In several cases, a worker may not like to get back to their hostile work environment. All the same, in a situation where you win the case, the employer may be obliged to pay up the court costs and legal fees of the employee. Always bear in mind that if your employer comes for your throat because you reported DFEH violations, you can file a complaint against the employer for retaliating or wrongfully terminating your employment.
At JLG, our Los Angeles lawyers specialize in age discrimination, so you can reach out to us to arrange a free case assessment and determine how to proceed with the claim.