When a Miami employee is wrongfully terminated, it means that the employee was terminated from his or her job in a way that violated federal or state law. One of the most common categories of wrongful termination is discriminatory firing. This means that an individual was fired as a result of his or her race, religion, national origin, sexual preference, sex, disability, age, pregnancy status or another protected status.
When an employee suffers a discriminatory firing, he or she may seek financial compensation in court by filing a wrongful termination claim along with a charge of discrimination via the federal U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Depending on the nature of the facts surrounding the termination, employees might also prefer to file their wrongful termination claims via a local or state anti-discrimination authority.
Another common element of a discriminatory firing claim relates to retaliation. Retaliation is what happens after an employee complains to a supervisor about discriminatory behavior being brought against him or her on the job. If the employer or manager punishes the employee for bringing discriminatory behavior to light — and that punishment could take the form of a wrongful termination, reduced wages, reduced working hours, a demotion or more — then retaliation is generally said to have occurred.
Since claims of wrongful termination and retaliation are limited by strict statutes of limitation — meaning there are time limitations on filing the claims — victims of discriminatory firing are encouraged to file their claims as expeditiously as possible. As such, those who have been harmed by wrongful termination, discriminatory firing and/or retaliation because of their race, sex, age or another protected reason may want to reach out to a Miami area employment law attorney before it is too late to file a claim.
Source: FindLaw, “What is wrongful termination?,” accessed Nov. 28, 2016
