Age Discrimination
Most employment agreements are “At-Will in California. However, employers cannot terminate an employee in violation of public policy laws. When an employer fires an employee in violation of state and federal law, then the employee has a claim for wrongful termination. An employer cannot discriminate against an employee based on the employee’s age. If an employee is over 40 years old, and an employee is a victim of an adverse employment action such as termination, demotion, discrimination in pay or failure to promote based on his/her age, then the employee might have a claim for age discrimination if younger employees in the company are treated differently, or are not subject to the same treatment.
California Fair Housing and Employment law, and the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967 both forbid discrimination based on age. Under both Federal
law and California law, in order to prove age discrimination, the employee must prove that he/she is over 40 years old, and the reason for the adverse employment action was due to age. This can be established by showing that the main reason motivating the adverse employment action was age. For instance, if an employee does not receive the salary that younger employees in the company receive for the same job, or the employee is being singled out based on his age, and then the employee was subjected to an adverse employment action, then the employee has a potential claim for age discrimination.
Age discrimination could occur when an employee is wrongfully terminated and the main reason for the termination is the employee’s age. It also could occur in connection with a disability discrimination claim as well.
In an age discrimination case, Plaintiff can recover back pay, future pay for loss of income, emotional distress and attorney fees.
Example: Michael is a 60- year old employee who works for a construction company. Since last year, his supervisor has made comments about the way he walks and tells him that he is getting slower. The majority of the employees are younger than 40 years old. Michael suddenly gets terminated after a write-up, while he has never had any performance issues prior to this incident. Michael has a potential claim of age discrimination if he can establish that the only reason for his termination was his age.
If you have been victim of age discrimination, or your employer has discriminated against you based on your age, please contact one of our attorneys’ at Employment Rights Lawyers, APC.
