Five tips for building your age discrimination claim

 Posted on July 30, 2024 in Employment Law

If you're 40 years of age or older, then there's a good chance that you have additional workplace protections against age discrimination. Yet, despite laws prohibiting age discrimination, the issue continues to run rampant in workplaces across the country. One reason is that workers simply can't identify when age discrimination occurs. In some instances, these individuals minimize the behavior exhibited towards them, while in others they aren't aware of their employer's motivation for taking certain actions against them.

But you can't afford to let your employer get away with workplace discrimination. If you do, then you could wind up with a stunted career, lost income, a damaged reputation, and mental anguish. To avoid those outcomes, you need to take legal action to hold your employer accountable for the age discrimination they've exhibited towards you.

How can you build an effective age discrimination case?

You have to be thorough as you build your age discrimination case. This means taking the following actions to develop your claim:

1. Retaining all communications with your employer: Emails, text messages, and performance appraisals can be telling about how your employer views you. By keeping these records, you might more easily identify references to your age or patterns of behavior that seem motivated based on your age. These documents can also help you prove how your employer reacted to your concerns about discrimination, which can be powerful evidence in a workplace discrimination claim.
2. Subpoenaing records: Your employer won't willingly hand over internal communications, especially if they think that those communications will be harmful to their case. But by conducting thorough discovery, you might be able to get your hands on these records, which may show a pattern of discriminatory behavior or discussions about how your age has impacted your ability to effectively work and thus your ability to advance in your career.
3. Keeping a written journal: Workplace discrimination can cause a lot of damage. But those losses that are noneconomic in nature, like mental anguish, are hard to put a value on. By keeping a written journal of your efforts to mitigate your damages and how the discrimination has negatively impacted you, you can better demonstrate just how harmful your employer's actions have been.
4. Talking to witnesses: If your employer has engaged in age discrimination, then there's a good chance that you're not their only victim. By talking to co-workers and former employees, you might discover a pattern of behavior indicative of widespread age discrimination that's more egregious than you initially thought.
5. Looking for disparate impact: Most age discrimination is indirect, which is why it's so hard for people to identify and react to. By looking at your company's hiring, promoting, disciplining, and terminating practices, though, you might see patters that disproportionately impact older workers. If you notice that your employer is frequently hiring and promoting younger workers over more experienced and better qualified candidates, then you might be onto disparate impact.

Don't let your employer get away with taking advantage of you

Regardless of your age, you deserve to be treated fairly in the workplace. When your employer discriminates against you, you could end up irreparably harmed unless you take action to right the wrong that's been caused to you. That's why if you suspect that you've been victimized by age discrimination, then now is the time to get to work building your case. Only by being aggressive can you increase your chances of holding your employer accountable and recovering the compensation you deserve.