New York Discrimination Legal Questions

Was this for a civil service job? What was the error? Who made it and how or why? Did you mitigate your damages? If so what are your damages? Seek legal counsel immediately! If there were or is a tort claim against any governmental entity or individuals working for it you better properly serve your notice of claim within 90 days of when you learned of or should have known about the error. If you dont get ready for a long long possibly expensive litigation. Suing the government is never easy. Seek legal counsel either way. Government or private sector job. People do make mistakes. Its the how and why that matters most and whether you still want the job.... Read More

Maybe. If your family member was disabled or regarded as such then you might have a claim for associational discrimination prohibited by the ADA. If your family member published to 3rd parties false information that you were involved in criminal activity you might have a slander or defamation of character claim against them. Consult with an employment lawyer for more possible claims. They would all depend on the evidence and how a theory of recovery might be proven by you and your lawyer. You have a duty to mitigate damages which means you have to keep looking for a new job. How tough will that be to land? If the new job pays more what are your damages? Was a written agreement broken?... Read More

Were either you or the coworker addicted to drugs or alcohol and no longer are? The Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and the Americans with Disabilities Act as Amended protect employees who were addicted but no longer abuse drugs or alcohol. If the coworker put on his application that he has a disability such as drug abuse but no longer uses them they had to hire him if he met the qualifications to do the job. That is confidential. You will never know that. If that's what he did the risk is that if they do a drug test which comes back positive in the future he will be fired. If the above applies to you then you can request an accommodation as a disabled person under those facts but dont ne surprised if you are randomly tested much more than any other employee who never abused. Good luck. Interesting question.... Read More

If you are approached find out what the reason is for whatever action they take. Don't assume that going "back to doing calls" is a demotion or less money. Unless they tell you it's less money, it could be the same or more money. You won't know until you try. Never quit, unless you already have another job lined up. Quitting may be he worst thing you can do. Constructive discharge, being forced to quit, is tough to prove as well. You are in Florida. We don't have enough information to determine whether you have sufficient contacts - by contract, function, organization, etc... to have New York's laws possibly provide you with more rights than you do in Florida. New York Courts have stated that the public policy of Florida is repulsive to New York's. In comparison to New York, Florida is not favorable for employees but then many who relocate there no longer work so what concern would it be of theirs? I practiced in Florida for 16 years. No regrets in returning north. Until there is adverse employment action against you all you can do is keeping doing your job to the best of your ability. Saving money is not illegal unless the company hires females, who traditionally earn less, to replace males. Or uses money as a disguise for age discrimination, or other discrimination. Pay attention. Listen carefully. Take notes. Watch what happens to others. Is the company targeting protected classes of workers? Oder, disabled, male or female, etc...? If it's age, it has to be a "but for age" an employee would still be working. If it's just saving money, that may not be illegal? Are you an "at will" employee like most people are? No written contract, no union, not working for the government then probably yes. They need no reason to terminate you. You will have the burden of proving it was an unlawful reason. Your notes, performance evaluations, documents will be key. If you are offered a severance package (no company is required to offer one unless by contract) pay an employment lawyer to go over it with you before you sign it. Some of us do that long distance nowadays. I seem to represent more and more employees who I never personally meet. The legal landscape is changing rapidly as are most people's jobs.    ... Read More

Yes- there's nothing discriminatory about declining to hire a person whose image has been "tarnished", even if falsely. However, if this happened less than a year ago, and you know who did it, you may have a slander/defamation case against that person. One element of slander is proof of damages, and if you just lost a job opportunity, you have damages. ... Read More

You cannot be fired for demanding that you be paid fairly, and you cannot be paid less than minimum wage for your work. Although normally you would be considered an "employee at will" who could be fired for any non-discriminatory reason, once you complained about not being paid fairly and were fired for it, you became a "whistle blower" because you essentially reported a violation of the law to your employer- being underpaid. You then were protected by the law from retaliatory termination. Assuming you really did not get paid minimum wage and were fired for complaining about it, you have a good case, and the law says your boss must pay your attorney fees if you win. ... Read More

You do not say if you are in foreclosure or not.  You have already used the bankruptcy process and you should have modified it in that case.  Also, the HAMP program, the main Federal program is over.  Given your limited income, and the failure to act sooner, honestly you have few if any options at this point.... Read More

Probably not. It sounds like you've had no damages, and in order to prove slander, you must allege special damages, which are quantifiable losses (e.g. lost profits from player desertion, turn-downs for tournament applications, denial of permits, etc.) directly resulting from these statements. If you have money losses, you may have a case, as long as you have the specifics (time, place, content, and who heard them) of the slanderous statements. If you haven't suffered any of those, apparently your stellar reputation precedes you, and nobody believes these statements. You can always write letters of complaint to your mutual overseeing organization, if there is one, and of course there's always the option to write a letter to the editor of your local paper. And on the bright side, if these clowns are spending 45 minutes of their 2 hour meetings discussing you, look how much strategy time they're wasting. ... Read More