If you have been repeatedly subjected to inappropriate racially or sexually based comments, jokes or insults or if you have been subjected to racially or sexually offensive photographs, posters, figurines and other literature, you may be the victim of a racially or sexually hostile working environment. Moreover, if you have been deprived of promotions, equal pay or other work-related benefits due to your race or sex, you may have a claim of racial or sexual discrimination against your employer. The attorneys at Charles Law Offices have successfully prosecuted employees’ claims of racial and sexual discrimination, including claims of racially and/or sexually hostile working environments.

If you believe that you have been discriminated against due to your race or sex, contact the attorneys at Charles Law Offices.

Both the Pennsylvania Human Relations Act (PHRA) and the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA) prohibit discrimination against an employee based on age. Our courts apply the same analysis to age discrimination claims under the Pennsylvania Human Relations Act (PHRA) and the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA). In order to establish a prima facia case of age discrimination, an individual must show that he or she:

1. was a member of the protected class, i.e., was forty years of age or older;
2. was discharged;
3. was qualified for the job or benefit in question; and
4. was replaced by a sufficiently younger person to create an inference of age discrimination.

In addressing the issue of “substantially younger,” the Courts have determined that an eight (8) year difference between the individual fired and his or her replacement was “substantially younger” to permit an inference of age discrimination. The Pennsylvania Human Relations Act further prohibits any individuals from aiding and abetting employment discrimination under the Act and protects employees, age forty (40) and over, from discrimination in all facets of employment.

If you are forty (40) years of age and older, qualified to do your work and have been subjected to disparate (unequal) treatment, an adverse employment action or replacement by a substantially younger employee, you may have a claim of age discrimination against your employer. Furthermore, if you have been retaliated against for objecting to an employer’s discriminatory practices due to age or if you have participated in an investigation of age-related discriminatory practices, you may have a claim of age discrimination against your employer.

If you believe that you have been the victim of age discrimination, contact the attorneys at Charles Law Offices.

Employers often cite budgetary and reduction in force (RIF) defenses as justifications for terminating employees who are age forty (40) and over. An employee who has been subjected to an adverse employment action may challenge these defenses by showing that he or she was subjected to an impermissible double standard and that substantially younger employees were treated better or dealt with less harshly than employees age forty (40) and over. An employee who was subjected to an adverse employment action may challenge an employer’s cost efficiency, budgetary/efficiency or reduction in force (RIF) defenses by:

1. directly or circumstantially discrediting each defense; or
2. producing circumstantial or direct evidence that discrimination was more likely than not a motivating or determining cause in the adverse employment action.

An employee may demonstrate weaknesses, implausibilities, inconsistencies, incoherencies or contradictions for an employer’s proffered reason for its action. By doing so the employee may allow a judge or jury or fact finder to conclude that the employer’s reasons were unworthy of belief and that the employer’s action was for discriminatory reasons.

Reduction in Force (RIF)

In order to assert a Reduction In Force (RIF) defense, an employer must do so on the basis of a sound, business-related reason, and the criteria upon which an employee may be laid off or terminated must be carefully defined and not related to the employee’s age. An employee may defeat a Reduction In Force (RIF) defense by producing evidence to show that the employer intended to discriminate based on age. An employee may further challenge this defense by showing that an employer favored younger employees over older employees by finding positions for the younger employees in other departments. If an employee is able to identify substantially younger employees who were subjected to the reduction in force and who obtained alternate positions for which the older employee was qualified, the employee may prevail on his or her claim of age discrimination.

Charles Law Offices has prosecuted claims of discrimination based on age and challenged the improper attempt by employers to assert a Budgetary or Reduction In Force (RIF) Defense. If you have been denied a promotion, demoted, laid off, deprived of an employment opportunity, terminated and/or subjected to any adverse and unwelcome employment action due to your age (age forty and over), contact the attorneys at the Charles Law Offices.

The Pennsylvania Human Relations Act (PHRA) and the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) prohibit employers from discriminating against an employee or prospective employee on the basis of disability. Both acts mandate that an employer make every effort to assist or accommodate an employee to work notwithstanding the employee’s disability. Under both acts, an employer is mandated to engage in an “interactive process” in order to provide a reasonable accommodation to a disabled employee and to assist the employee’s performance of his or her job responsibilities despite his or her disability. Charles Law Offices has prosecuted claims of discrimination involving disabilities such as Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADD/ADHD), mental disorder/illness, depression, panic attacks, severe migraine headaches, Posttraumatic Stress Disorder, acute stress disorder, and physical injuries, including fractured pelvis, herniated discs and Raynaud’s Disease.

If you suffer from a recognized disability and have been denied a promotion, demoted, laid off, denied a reasonable accommodation, terminated or otherwise subjected to an adverse employment action on the basis of your disability, contact the attorneys at Charles Law Offices.

The Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA) mandates that an employer provide an eligible employee certain rights, including unpaid leave during any twelve (12) month period. Said leave may be utilized by the employee for the health care of a family member, such as a parent, spouse, child or for the health care of the employee. If an employee meets the Act’s requirements, the employer must provide that employee the same or equivalent position, pay and benefits upon his or her return to work as he or she had at the time that leave was taken under the Act.

If you have been denied your request for leave under the Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA) or if you have been denied a promotion, demoted, laid off, deprived of an employment opportunity, terminated and/or subjected to any adverse and unwelcome employment action for exercising your right to benefits under the Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA), contact the attorneys at the Charles Law Offices.

The applicable statutes and case law, including the Pennsylvania Human Relations Act (PHRA), prohibit an employer from discriminating against an employee based upon the employee’s religious affiliation. Moreover, an employee may not be discriminated against for wearing religious medals, necklaces, bracelets or religious garb. Nor may an employer discriminate against an employee for requesting time to observe religious holidays.

If you have been ordered to remove any religious medals, necklaces, bracelets or religious garb, denied the opportunity to observe a religious holiday or have been denied a promotion, demoted, laid off, deprived of an employment opportunity, terminated and/or subjected to any adverse and unwelcome employment action for exercising your religious affiliation, contact the attorneys at the Charles Law Offices.

Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits an employer from retaliating against an employee for opposing any practice made unlawful by Title VII or for making a charge, testifying, assisting or participating in any manner in an investigation, proceeding or hearing under Title VII. These prohibitions are referred to as “the opposition clause” and “the participation clause.” To constitute protected activity for the employee, the conduct complained of need not actually be unlawful so long as at the time of the opposition the employee had a good faith and objectively reasonable belief that the activity that he/she opposed was unlawful. Statements made by an employee during an employer’s internal investigation also may constitute protected activity under Title VII.

A plaintiff, in a retaliation case, must prove:

1. he/she engaged in protected employment activity;

2. the employer took an adverse employment action after or contemporaneously with the protected activity; and

3. a causal link exists between the protected activity and the adverse employment action.

A causal link between the protected activity and the adverse action may be inferred from “an unusually suggestive” proximity between the two, an intervening pattern of antagonism following the protected conduct, or as a result of the proffered evidence examined as a whole.

In addition to the above-described mandates of Title VII, the Pennsylvania Human Relations Act (PHRA) makes it illegal for an employer to discriminate against an employee because said employee had opposed acts of discrimination or participated in proceedings challenging the employer’s discriminatory work practices. Moreover, the Pennsylvania Human Relations Act makes it unlawful:

• For any person, employer, employment agency or labor organization to discriminate in any manner against any individual because such individual has opposed any practice forbidden by the Act, or because such individual has made a charge, testified or assisted in any manner, in any investigation, proceeding or hearing under the Act.

• For any person, employer, employment agency, labor organization or employee to aid, abet, incite, compel or coerce the doing of any act declared by the Act to be an unlawful discriminatory practice.

Retaliation claims and the relevant “opposition” or “participation” clauses apply equally to unlawful conduct under the Pennsylvania Human Relations Act (PHRA) and Title VII. An employee asserting an unlawful retaliation for his or her opposition to discriminatory practices or participation in any investigation, need not prove that the underlying conduct was unlawful under the Pennsylvania Human Relations Act.

If you, or a family member or friend, have been the subject of employment discrimination or retaliation for opposing an employer’s discriminatory practice or participating in an investigation of an employer’s discriminatory practice, contact the lawyers at Charles Law Offices.