What are your damages? Assuming you still work there how much money have you actually lost?
If you were fired for gross misconduct you would not recover unemployment benefits. If you do not recover unemployment benefits how would you prove and potentially recover damages for potential discrimination because of sex, for example?
Isolated incidents of name calling will not rise to the level of a hostile workplace. You need to show that the hostility was severe or pervasive and that it was either because of sex or some other protected class of employee which was being targeted.
And finally, you have to mitigate your damages. That means look for another job. So if you were fired and then got a higher paying job, again, what would your damages be?
You might want to watch just a few short clips of "Employment Law Reality Check" on my website at www.UrbaNYlaw.com. Each one is less than a minute long and listening to them might help you understand how difficult proving an employment discrimination claim is. Good luck. Every employee owes their employer a duty of loyalty so if you challenge a supervisor that could be insubordination. Insubordination could rise to the level of gross misconduct. Gross misconduct would probably disqualify you from receiving unemployment. Being denied unemployment would probably wipe out discrimination claims such as "because of sex" (calling someone a pussy repeatedly over a period of time, if proven, might do it). And you would have to prove the because of sex was severe or pervasive and that you suffered economic loss due to being fired for complaining about such conduct.
Sounds like you have lots of work ahead of you and make sure to lawyer up if you pursue such a claim.
Answered on Oct 29th, 2018 at 7:19 AM