When an employee is discharged, the first question is whether the employee is protected by a job security system, such as civil service, a collective bargaining agreement, academic tenure, or other promise of job security made by the employer. If the employee has job security, the employer must have good cause for discharge.
Even if the employee is at-will and does not have job security, workers are still protected from termination for illegal reasons. There are many federal and state laws that make reasons for adverse employment action illegal. Discrimination because of race, color, religion, national origin, sex, age, or disability are all examples of illegal reasons for discharge that can be challenged.
Legal Remedies
The remedies for discrimination include what the law calls equitable as well as legal remedies. Equitable remedies include:
- Lost back pay and future pay
- an order that the employee be reinstated
- an order to the employer to stop discriminating.
- The federal statutes prohibiting discrimination now provide for a jury trial for claims of intentional discrimination and also provide legal remedies to compensate for the pain and suffering the victims of discrimination have suffered and punitive damages to punish particularly egregious discriminators. Compensatory and punitive damages are subject to caps depending on the size of the employer. While the victims of age discrimination cannot get punitive damages, the ADEA does provide for double damages when the employer’s action is found to be willful.
Employees treated in a completely outrageous way by their employers may be able to bring personal injury actions against the employer for the intentional infliction of mental distress.
