What should you do if the company that you work at discriminates against you and then fires you? The best reasonable thing to do is to find a lawyer who is willing to take your case. Now, you might be thinking about how the lawyer will go about proving in a trial that you are discriminated against. Here is everything you need to know.
The Lawyer Will Establish a Foundation
Now, the thing with unlawful discrimination is that it requires your employer or company to take adverse action against you. The adverse action must be taken against you because you have a protected characteristic. So, it is incredibly important for your lawyer to establish that you have a protected characteristic and that your employer knows about it.
While this aspect might appear pretty obvious in a race discrimination case, it can be much more challenging when you are a pregnant woman who has been discriminated against because of her pregnancy. If you have been fired because of your disability, it can be a challenge for your lawyer to prove this aspect in court.
Important Point is Your Employer’s Knowledge
The one thing that we are placing much importance on is the aspect that the company or your employer must have knowledge of your protected characteristics if you want to win a wrongful termination case. Suppose you have a disability, and you believe that you have been fired because of that disability; then you must be able to prove in court that your employer was aware of your disability before they fired you.
Understandably, your employer cannot have discriminatory intent if they didn’t even know about your disability, your religion, your medical condition, your sexual orientation, or whatever protected characteristic applies to your case.
The Lawyer Will Look For Direct Evidence
If you have been wrongfully terminated, you must get a lawyer on board as soon as possible. Ideally, you should hire a wrongful termination lawyer, such as Wrongful Termination Colorado, if you live in Colorado so that your lawyer can collect the much-needed evidence to prove your case in court. Your lawyer will look for direct evidence that will suggest that your employer doesn’t like people with that specific characteristic.
- Direct evidence can include the following aspects:
- Verbal comments directed at you and other people.
- Written comments directed at you and other people.
- Text messages, emails, and any other written medium.
- Jokes that are directed at you and other people.
Coworkers Might Be Willing to Help
Evidence can also include witnesses, as some honest co workers might come to the aid of you and your case. Honest employees are often happy to give lawyers the truth about the bad person at work. However, you must keep in mind that most coworkers don’t voluntarily help as they are still employed there and they need the paycheck.
However, the past statements and writings of the employees can be used to your benefit. Often, you can find emails, text messages, jokes, and more that can prove your claims in court. In most cases, getting direct evidence is pretty rare, but your lawyer will try to get it.
The Lawyer Will Assess Your Job Performance
The lawyer will also look at your job performance history as well as the company’s discipline history. It is absolutely critical for your lawyer to establish your baseline of job performance. Now, what this means is that you need to prove that you are a satisfactory employee. Think about the past and whether you have ever been written up or reprimanded before.
Think about how long you have worked at the company before you got terminated. Your lawyer will collect crucial data as they will want to know everything about your performance. What this will do for you is that if your company or employer lies and states that you were a bad employee, your lawyer can prove to the jury that their claim is everything but true.
Subsequently, the lawyer will prove that the real reason you got fired was due to your protected characteristics.
The Lawyer Will Assess the Company’s Treatment of Other Employees
Apart from your employment history and job performance, your lawyer will also asses how the company has been treating other employees. So, if other employees have the exact same characteristics that you have but don’t get fired, then this aspect will make it much more difficult for your lawyer to prove your case.
On that note, if the employer claims that you were terminated because you were late one day and they haven’t fired other employees for being late, then it is more likely that the real reason for you getting fired is your protected characteristic.
The Lawyer Will Assess Your Personnel File
To prove that you have been terminated because of your protected characteristics, your lawyer will have a look at your personnel file, your performance documents, emails, and text messages. Subsequently, the lawyer will get people to testify under oath that you are a good employee. Your lawyer will then proceed to collect all the information and put it into what is referred to as a comprehensive timeline of events.
This way, your lawyer will be able to explain your story to the jury in a very specific order.
Your Lawyer Will Asses the Circumstantial Evidence
Lastly, your lawyer will look at the circumstantial evidence and assess the people who are lying. You should know that in litigation, lawyers use different evidence tools to collect information. These tools include requests for admission, interrogatories, depositions, etc. These various tools allow lawyers to collect useful information under oath.
Now, what this means is that if your employer or the company lies when responding to any of these tools – the liar has essentially committed perjury. In the case of perjury, the jury will know who the liar is. It is not difficult to understand what happens when someone lies to the jury. Understandably, the lying party loses the case and has to face consequences.
If it gets proven to the jury that your company lied to them about why you were fired, it will prove that the real reason for your termination was your protected characteristic.
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