AGE DISCRIMINATION IN THE WORKPLACE
Employees fired, or laid off due to their age over 40 are victims of workplace age discrimination! Our experienced age discrimination attorneys should review your job termination to see if you are a victim of workplace age discrimination at work. Age discrimination occurs at large companies and small companies. Age bias in employment exists in blue collar and white collar jobs.
Good age discrimination cases are divided into two categories:
Our age discrimination lawyer has handled many cases in which a supervisor, or the actual employee responsible for making the termination decision made comments about the employee’s age before the employee was wrongfully terminated.
Managers Who Make Comments About the Employee’s Age Discriminatory Layoffs Based Upon Age
Ageist remarks may include:
Comments about retirement: When will you retire? You could retire now, or you should retire now. If you retired you could get x benefits due to your age. You would be better off if you retired.
Comments about speed or health: We need somebody faster, or if you were younger. Are you sure you want to travel at your age? Technology is not your generation so x is better suited to do that task or job.
Some age discrimination lawsuits involve genuinely nasty comments such as an employee called grandma in a derogatory way; old man, or the old geezer. Where is your cane? You need better glasses at your age, are you sure you see anymore? This isn’t Aarp.
Decisions to fire employees on the basis of their age often arise in the event of a layoff. Layoffs predominately affecting employees over the age of 40 tend to have a discriminatory impact based upon age. If the odds of being fired in a layoff increase dramatically due to age the layoff may be said to have a discriminatory effect on employees over certain protected ages. Decisions to end employment based upon age may also be coupled with references to the employee taking time off due to medical conditions.
AGE DISCRIMINATION LAWYER
An experienced age discrimination lawyer can help employees evaluate whether their negative work experience amounts to age discrimination under the law opposed to something else. Some work environments may rise to the level of work stress, but do not rise to the level of age discrimination under the Federal Age Discrimination in Employment Act, or Maryland State Age Discrimination Law. An experienced Maryland age discrimination lawyer knows the differences between these two acts including how quickly employees must exhaust governmental remedies and sue. We cannot overemphasize the need to quickly consult with a Maryland workplace age discrimination lawyer due to the short periods of time in which Maryland age discrimination lawsuits need to be dealt with, by state and federal law.
Qualified age discrimination lawyers will spend some time with the victim of age discrimination to determine if workplace conduct is substantially motivated by age over 40. Evidence of ageist comments and pretexts for termination will be examined including whether the employee over 40 was replaced, and if so the age of the replacement.
Age discrimination attorneys can help a long term employee being offered severance decide if they should accept the severance, sue, or ask for more severance. Layoff off lists with the ages of the other employees being laid off are of particular interest to an experienced age discrimination attorney. For example, one California/ Washington D.C. lawyer, Karl Gerber, had an age discrimination lawsuit against a national newspaper chain in which the statistician he hired testified it was statistically improbable so many people over 40 and 50 would have been randomly selected for a layoff, and the older the employee was the likelihood of being laid off became a virtual certainty.
SUE FOR AGE DISCRIMINATION
Decisions to sue for age discrimination are personal decisions. Experienced age discrimination lawyers can guide an employee through the evaluation process as to what evidence of age discrimination exists. Experienced age discrimination lawyers can help employees determine if severance should be accepted, or negotiated.
Different law firms have different standards. Some law firms will take cases in which an employee is merely experiencing something at work they feel may be ageist, but they have not been fired. Our law firm, for example, may not be able to take cases in which an employee was not promoted due to age. Our age discrimination attorney focuses on workplace cases in which employee has actually been fired, and we believe we can prove the real reason for termination was age over 40.
In order to sue while still employed victims of age discrimination must demonstrate they have suffered adverse job consequences. Courts are reluctant, especially in the context of age, to rule actions short of a loss of employment constitute adverse job consequences.
We believe age discrimination lawsuits should be pursued if they can be won. The following is a brief list of evidence that may help prove a job termination was age discrimination:
Ageist remarks by a person involved in the job termination go a long way to prove a termination due to age over 40
Age discrimination in employment can be proven by statistical evidence
Evidence of a replacement with a younger, less qualified person is also significant. The replacement does not necessarily have to be under 40.
Terminations of employment based upon notions persons over 40 are no longer suited for the job often constitute good evidence of age discrimination
Layoffs that target persons over 40 especially if it is believed they are likely to suffer from medical conditions may be significant in proving age discrimination
WE ONLY TAKE AGE DISCRIMINATION LAWSUITS ON A CONTINGENCY WHICH MEANS WE ARE PAID WHEN AND IF WE CAN COLLECT MONEY FROM THE EMPLOYER