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Wrongful terminations happen often in the state of Florida. What doesn’t happen often is a worker who actually holds his ex-employer legally accountable for a wrongful termination. Indeed, numerous instances of inappropriate job loss sail past the radar of the courts because the victims of the wrongful termination don’t know that they’ve been harmed unjustly.

Fortunately, this did not happen in a recent wrongful termination case. An employee for a landscaping company in Charlotte County sued his ex-employer for wrongful termination. According to the worker, he was terminated after taking employment leave to which he was legally entitled.

Late last month, the man filed an employment law claim under the Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA) and the Fair Labor Standards Act. In his complaint, the man alleged that he maintained employment with the landscaping company during the years from 2009 through 2016. However, after a back injury, he needed to take time off. He invoked his right under the FMLA to take the time off he needed in September 2016, but in December his employer terminated him due to excessive absences.

The plaintiff says that he lost wages as a result of the wrongful termination, which further constituted retaliation for taking advantage of his FMLA rights. Court documents indicate that the wronged employee is asking for a jury trial in addition to compensation for his financial damages, court costs and attorneys’ fees.

Do you suspect that you were wrongfully terminated from your employer? You may be able to stand up for your rights in court as well. By contacting an employment law attorney, you can learn more about your legal rights and your ability to seek financial compensation in court.

Source: Florida Record, “Landscaper alleges he was terminated in retaliation for taking leave,” Jenie Mallari-Torres, March 06, 2017

Discrimination by employers based on race or sex often gets more publicity than discrimination based on disability. But discrimination based on disability is also a big problem – and appears to be getting worse. If only more was done about this issue – they cannot claim from this unfair treatment when in many cases it can be majorly damaging for them to have the confidence to carry out basic day to day activities. On the upside, disabled people can claim on their downfalls with a TPD insurance claim from companies like Curo Financial. This helps them to cope with their situation especially if they are permanently disabled. However it doesn’t help with the mental scarring someone might feel from abuse in the workplace or anywhere else for that matter.

In this post, we will address five frequently asked questions about this problem.

How frequent is disability discrimination compared to other types?

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) recently released a report on employment charges handled by the EEOC in 2016. The most frequent type of discrimination was race discrimination, at 35.3 percent of the cases. Disability discrimination was close behind, however, at 30.7 percent.

Disability discrimination was more common among the EEOC cases than sex discrimination, which accounted for 29.4 percent of the cases.

How many cases were there last year?

There were more than 28,000 charges of disability discrimination filed with the EEOC last year. Of those, the EEOC determined that 5,680 were supposed by sufficient evidence, resulting in about $131 million in penalties.

And remember, these numbers are only of cases that were filed with the EEOC. Many cases of discrimination go unreported. If you believe you are being discriminated against, it makes sense to discuss your situation with a knowledgeable employment law attorney.

Is the number of disability-related EEOC charges going up? And if so, why?

Yes, the number of cases is going up. And the percentage of EEOC cases involving disability (nearly 31 percent) is much higher than the percentage of disabled people in the general population (20 percent).

Disabled people also tend to have lower workforce participation rates than people who aren’t disabled. This is not only due to disability discouraging people from seeking employment. It is also because of discrimination by employers and refusal to make reasonable accommodations.

It isn’t entirely clear why the number of EEOC charges related to disability is going up. It may be that disabled people have become more assertive in brining justifiable claims, rather than simply accepting the discrimination.

What types of accommodations do employers have to provide?

An obvious example is making a work setting accessible to people who use wheelchairs. For them, installing a vertical lift in the workplace is necessary. Although the cost of a vertical platform lift varies from manufacturer to manufacturer, employers have an obligation to get one installed that is safe and usable for all employees with a disability. Similarly, many different situations can of course arise in the workplace. Even out of the workplace, to an extent, the employer should provide accessibility. For example, if an employer provides transport, then they should ensure that there is a wheelchair lift for vehicles in order to accommodate any employees using a wheelchair. Things like these are a small ask, and usually within the purview of affordability by any employer. At the end of the day, the question is whether a requested change in the way things are usually done is reasonable.

Employers often argue that accommodating employees or job applicants with disabilities is too difficult or expensive and so would impose an undue hardship on the employer. Determining whether that is the case is a fact-specific matter that depends on the individual case. For example, some companies provide their employees with necessary disability services (similar to the services offered by NDIS coordinators) so that they can work without much difficulty. Nevertheless, the way organizations provide necessary services to disabled employees varies from one organization to another.
What if there were other types of discrimination besides disability discrimination in the same case?

In many cases, people face multiple forms of discrimination. For example, you may be a disabled woman of color who also faces race or sex discrimination. Or perhaps you are a disabled LGBQT person who is subjected to discrimination based partly on disability and partly on sexual preference.

Cases involving multiple discrimination types can be more challenging to investigate than more straightforward cases. They can, however, most certainly be brought.

The vice president of production and growth for the Uber ridesharing smartphone application has resigned from his position amidst accusations of sexual harassment. The vice president — who used to be an executive at Facebook — joined Uber in 2013.

Although the vice president did not admit to leaving Uber due to sexual harassment allegations, his departure coincides with a large-scale harassment investigation at the company. Among the allegations that inspired the investigation were complaints that the vice president had a sexual encounter with a fellow employee.

In some cases of interoffice romances, it is a violation of company policy not to disclose the relationship. In other situations, relationships between employees are entirely prohibited. At this time, it is unknown what the Uber corporation policy is on employees dating one another.

This appears to be the second resignation of a top level Uber executive to coincide with the ongoing sexual harassment investigations. The investigation began after a female ex-engineer for the company published her account of a wide-spread corporate culture of sexism and sexual harassment at Uber.

No employee — no matter where in the United States he or she happens to be working — should ever need to endure unwanted sexual advances, sexual harassment, or any kind of harassment on the job. If you or your loved one is being victimized by this kind of abuse in Florida, an employment law attorney can help. A lawyer can evaluate the nature of the abuse you have endured in order to 1) stop the abuse once and for all, and 2) seek compensation for financial damages in court.

Source: CNBC, “Uber’s vice president of product and growth Ed Baker has resigned,” Kara Swisher and Johanna Bhuiyan, March 03, 2017

Over 500 female prison workers from the U.S. Bureau of Prisons have negotiated a multimillion-dollar sexual harassment settlement. The class-action plaintiffs have been involved in the litigation of a lawsuit alleging that they were subjected to sexual harassment by inmates and managers at their prison workplaces.

According to one employee, the sexual harassment was ongoing and constant. She said that it was not merely something that happened once a month. It was never-ending. Even worse, if employees complained they were tortured with gropings, gestures and inappropriate comments. They were also subjected to threats of rape from inmates, who would yell such threats to female employees throughout the prison.

Nevertheless, the lawsuit claims that management at the prisons would merely ignore such incidents and that they tossed incident reports into the garbage. Now, following years of litigation and negotiation, the plaintiffs have reached a $20 million settlement regarding the abuse. The sexual harassment settlement is the largest of its kind in U.S. history.

According to an attorney representing the plaintiffs, they are happy with the outcome. However, the attorney does not believe that any level of compensation will match the level of hardship endured by the plaintiffs in the case. In addition to the $20 million settlement, the Bureau of Prisons also agreed to improve harassment complaint tracking, offer psychological help to inmates that engage in sexual misconduct, and maintain a zero-tolerance policy as it applies to harassment by inmates.

No Miami, Florida, employee should ever have to endure sexual harassment conditions in his or her place of employment. If you are being subjected to this kind of cruel abuse, you may want to reach out to a Florida employment law attorney to put the abuse to a stop once and for all.

Source: WFTV, “$20 million to be paid to women claiming sexual harassment, cover-up at Florida prison,” Jeff Deal, Feb. 13, 2017

Florida businesses might seem like they’re doing everything by the books in terms of preventing discrimination on the surface. For many of these organization, they truly are discrimination-free workplaces. However, not all organizations reflect their facades once you look beneath the surface.

Talking with individual employees behind closed doors might reveal strong discriminatory sentiments. Your boss, for example, might believe that homosexual employees, African American employees, female employees and elderly employees are inferior. Although he or she may never outwardly admit to this fact, these sentiments will dictate the decisions relating to hiring, firing, raises, promotions and performance reviews.

Laws that prevent discrimination help, but the sad fact is, discriminatory practices happen every day in virtually every company in Florida. The fight against this unconscionable and unlawful treatment of employees will be a long one and long after discrimination is no longer outwardly visible, the invisible side of discrimination — and the horrible comments people make behind closed doors — will be very slow to die.

Indeed, we’ve all been there. No matter what sex you are — and no matter what race, national origin, age or sexual preference you have — you’ve probably been in a situation where you heard someone say an awful and discriminatory comment about someone who is different from you in some way, shape or form. At that moment, you had to decide whether to speak up or whether to bite your tongue.

There is one situation where you should never bite your tongue. If you suspect that you were victimized by a discriminatory workplace at your Florida workplace, it’s time to fight back. At the Law Offices of Gary A. Costales, we help employees stand up for their rights and seek financial compensation for the injuries they suffered as a result of discriminatory workplace behaviors.

Florida workplaces can be breeding grounds for sexual harassment. One bad egg and an entire culture of workplace sexual harassment can arrise before an employer even realizes it’s there. As such, businesses need to be diligent in their efforts to prevent their employees from being victimized by this kind of situation.

Here are steps that companies can take to minimize the likelihood of sexual harassment becoming a problem:

— Draft a concise and clear sexual harassment policy. This policy should define what sexual harassment is, state that sexual harassment will not be permitted or tolerated, describe the consequences, and describe the way complaints will be investigated.

— Train employees on how to recognize, prevent and avoid committing sexual harassment. Hold a training session annually for all employees. Be sure to zero in on things that regularly happen, which employees might not immediately recognize as sexual harassment.

— Diligently monitor the sexual harassment situation. Talk to employees regarding their working environment and encourage them to be open about any harassment issues they are encountering.

— Stress to employees that any issues they bring up about harassment will be confidential, and their careers and jobs will never be affected.

— Follow up and investigate all complaints. If a claim is found to be true, or even slightly accurate, take immediate and appropriate action to resolve the matter.

Florida employers have a duty to maintain a harassment-free workplace. Employers who fail to do so can be held liable for financial damages in court. Those damages might include lost income, lost opportunity costs, emotional pain and suffering, legal fees, and more.

Source: FindLaw, “Preventing Sexual Harassment,” accessed Feb. 17, 2017