AGE DISCRIMINATION ATTORNEY

An age discrimination lawyer will help employees over 40 determine if they have a valid workplace age discrimination lawsuit. Remember, age under 40 is not protected. The law does not allow for reversed age discrimination. Thus, age discrimination is about age 40 and over. With the workforce aging and so many different younger generations in today’s workforce, age discrimination at work is a problem. Age discrimination is not the easiest form of discrimination to prove, but it happens all the time.

Age discrimination lawyers will want to know:

• The age of the replacement, and if there was a replacement to the employee over 40

• Whether any comments were made about age

• The ages of the people involved in the employment termination decision

• Whether there has been a pattern of getting rid of older people, and if so did the same managers and supervisors do so

Unless you want to take whatever inadequate severance your employer has offered, you will need an experienced age discrimination lawyer to first evaluate whether your job termination was due to age over 40. Next, that experienced lawyer is need to actually file the lawsuit in court because large payouts on an age discrimination case rarely occur without the filing of an age discrimination lawsuit.

CALL 661-412-9600 to sue your employer for age discrimination

WORKPLACE AGE DISCRIMINATION

Workplace age discrimination manifests itself in a legally recoverable manner if due to age over 40 there has been harassment, a job termination, or the employee is forced to quit. Generalized feelings of not being treated right may not be substantial enough for a lawsuit. Alternatively, the situation may add up to a work stress claim in the workers compensation system [link to a wc page], but not a discrimination lawsuit in civil court. While a failure to promote may be due to age, these are not typically the type of cases an employee lawyer will take on a contingency. Generally, employee attorneys take cases on a contingency if there is a clear break in the employment due to an illegal reason, or there is serious harassment due to a protected characteristic.

Serious harassment due to age means there has been substantial harassment. A few inappropriate remarks are not enough. The time for the employee to engage in litigation and the time it will take a lawyer to either resolve a case or try the case through verdict and protect against appeals makes the filing of an age related lawsuit infeasible if the case is about a few stray remarks. Moreover, courts are not very willing to allow lawsuits to go forward if they only involve a few inappropriate comments.

Age related comments on a daily basis by a superior or manager may justify an age harassment lawsuit in civil court. Similar comments by a coworker that continue after management is aware of the comments may also justify a lawsuit for age harassment. Just like the comments needing to be numerous, they do need to be somewhat clearly relate to age. Often persons engaged in discriminatory conduct are subtle. The more links that have to be proven the less likely it is a case can be won. Having to convince a jury a comment about an old battery really related to the employee who was over 40 may be a hard sell. If the comment was this company needs to get rid of all its old batteries at such time an employee over 40 is hopelessly powering themself to lift a heavy load the comment is more self-explanatory.

TOO OLD FOR JOB

Those of us over 40 would like to believe that we are never too old for a job. Stereotypes about being too old for a job are problematic. Concepts that older women in marketing who do not dye their hair are too old for the job are problematic. This is an example of an age plus sex based discriminatory comment. Likewise, claims people over a certain age do not present the image the company wants to present, or they don’t look good in certain clothing including company uniforms sounds ageist. But what if the employee’s age is preventing them from doing the job?

If a Oleander/Sunset concrete worker over 40 has declared due to age related factors he will no longer do bag pours of concrete because it is too hard to lift 90 pound bags of concrete he has admitted he is too old to do an essential part of his job. Likewise, imagine a near sixty year old lawyer from The Seasons who refuses to utilize technology in the courtroom when doing a jury trial because she feels it is not worth learning how to do because she only has a few more years of trials in her. That employee has admitted she is unable to do her job effectively due to age. The Employment Lawyers Group does encounter new client callers like these examples. If an employee is refusing to do a significant or material portion of their job due to age, or they physically or mentally cannot do so any longer, they cannot sue to for age discrimination. Age discrimination requires employees be able to perform essential portions of their job due to age.

We serve clients throughout the Bakersfield metropolitan area and also in Arvin, Lebec, and anywhere in Kern County. We have happy ex-clients from College Heights to Cotton Wood to Mobile Town and all of the little communities that make up the Bakersfield area.

An experienced California age discrimination lawyer can help you determine whether you should sue for age discrimination. Call 661-412-9600