Articles Posted in Discrimination

For transgender workers in Georgia, the potential to be harmed by discrimination exists on several fronts. Even if an employer refrains from any adverse action directly related to the worker’s performance of their job, other ways to harm that worker still exist, such as the denial of insurance coverage for necessary treatments connected to their transgender condition. When a Georgia employer erects a carve-out in its insurance plan that specifically targets treatments designed for transgender people, then that employer has potentially engaged in gender identity discrimination in violation of Title VII… as well as disability discrimination in violation of the Americans With Disabilities Act. When that happens, be sure to contact an experienced Atlanta employment discrimination lawyer to find out how to protect your rights.

A.L., whose case this blog covered last year, was one of those employees. A.L. was a sheriff’s deputy in Houston County and a trans woman. The deputy’s medical providers diagnosed her with gender dysphoria and recommended hormone treatment, breast implants, and a vaginoplasty.

The employer’s health insurance refused to cover the care. As the deputy pointed out, the plan was discriminatory, covering hormone treatments when doctors prescribed them in relation to a woman’s menopause, but not in relation to a trans woman’s transition. Additionally, the plan covered mastectomies when needed as part of cancer treatment, but excluded them when they were part of a trans man’s gender dysphoria care.

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When you seek to defeat your employer’s motion for summary judgment in your discrimination case, you may have multiple avenues through which you can do that. One is to provide the court “a convincing mosaic of circumstantial evidence that raises a reasonable inference that the employer discriminated against” you. A knowledgeable Atlanta employment discrimination lawyer can help you ensure you’re amassing and presenting the evidence you need to defeat your employer’s motion and get your day in court before a jury.

M.B. was a Black man whose race discrimination case advanced using that “mosaic” method.

M.B. began working at a manufacturing facility in Flowery Branch in 2006. He rose to shift lead but never ascended any higher. That professional stagnation was not for lack of trying. From February 2017 to January 2018 alone, he applied for promotions five different times. Five times the employer turned him down.

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When an employer denies a worker a promotion, fires them, or refuses to hire them because they’re over 40, that decision potentially represents a violation of federal law (the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA).) If you’ve encountered an age discrimination issue — whether as an employee or an employer — an experienced Atlanta age discrimination lawyer can help you map out the path forward that is the most advantageous given your specific circumstances.

Observers have noted that age discrimination actions are on the rise. That includes here in Georgia.

In one recent age discrimination case, the employer was an Alpharetta-based manufacturer of connectors used in medical devices. Allegedly, after the employer named a new CEO in 2016 and a new president in 2019, the pair embarked on a plan to get rid of all the company’s older management employees and sales workers, replacing them with a new, younger staff.

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Two years ago, the U.S. Supreme Court declared that employment discrimination based on workers’ sexual orientations or gender identities constituted violations of Title VII. Since that time, the exact extent of federal law’s protection against gender identity discrimination remains an issue that is still developing. Whether you’re a worker who believes you’ve suffered this sort of harm or you’re an employer facing this type of charge, you definitely should consult a knowledgeable Atlanta employment discrimination lawyer with all due haste, who can advise you on the latest developments in the law and what your next steps should be.

As an illustration, we can look at all that has taken place just in the last six months.

In August, the Georgia Department of Corrections won a victory in a case regarding the interplay of preferred pronouns and gender identity discrimination. The employee, T.C. was a trans man who was AFAB (“assigned female at birth” or “born a biological female.”) In 2017, T.C. began hormone therapy. A year later, he legally changed his name.

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Every successful disability discrimination case necessarily involves several essential ingredients. You have to have suffered from a qualifying disability. You must have made a request that was sufficiently specific to put your employer on notice that you were seeking a disability accommodation. You also must have engaged in the interactive process in good faith. As you seek to build your failure-to-accommodate case, an experienced Atlanta disability discrimination lawyer can provide you with invaluable aid in securing and presenting the proof you’ll need to succeed.

A North Georgia employee’s case accusing her employer of failing to reasonably accommodate her disability recently scored an important victory in the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals. While the trial court had sided with the employer, the appeals court reversed that ruling and revived the case.

P.W. worked as a claims examiner in the Department of Veterans Affairs’ Atlanta regional office. The examiner, who was also a veteran, had degenerative disc disease in her back and partial paralysis in both her feet. Based on those conditions, the examiner asked for an accommodation regarding her parking spot. Normally, probationary examiners like P.W. had to park in an off-site parking lot one mile from the office; P.W. asked for permission to park on-site.

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As we enter the holiday season this year, one thing for which we can be thankful is that most of us generally can celebrate the season with many fewer restrictions as compared to two years ago. Even as COVID-19 has dissipated from its 2020 worst, the virus (and complications from it) remains a reality for many people. That includes people who have one or more COVID-connected disabilities that require a workplace accommodation. If you’re one of those people and your employer denied you the accommodation you need, you should get in touch with a knowledgeable Atlanta disability discrimination lawyer to discuss what the legal system can do for you.

Last year, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission sued a Newton County pharmaceutical manufacturing employer in a first of its kind: an action against an employer for an alleged failure to accommodate a worker’s disability that was related to COVID-19. Recently, the EEOC announced that the employer had agreed to settle the case.

R.M., the employee in the case, was a health, safety, and environmental quality (“HSE”) manager at the company’s facility located about 50 miles east of Atlanta. In early March 2020, the manager’s doctor diagnosed her with obstructive lung disease. The doctor recommended that the manager work from home and take frequent breaks while working.

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As of 2020, according to the National Institute of Mental Health, nearly 53 million American adults — or 21% — had one or more forms of mental illness, which can cover a wide array of disorders from depression to anxiety to schizophrenia to addiction. Fortunately for those who experience mental illness to an extent that it impairs major life activities, the Americans With Disabilities Act offers substantial protection against employment discrimination. If you have a mental health disability and your employer failed to accommodate that disability, then they may have violated the ADA. You should contact a knowledgeable Atlanta disability discrimination lawyer to find out if an ADA violation has taken place and, if so, what your next steps should be.

That sort of failure to accommodate was exactly what allegedly happened to one employee of Atlanta’s largest public hospital, and it ended with the worker securing a payout via a settlement.

The worker, a certified medical assistant (CMA), began experiencing symptoms of depression in September 2019. The woman visited a doctor, who diagnosed her with severe depression. Based on that diagnosis, the employee asked for a little more than a month of leave.

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People with disabilities can be the targets of discrimination in a variety of ways. Sometimes it may include being denied housing or employment based on disabilities. Other times, it can include being denied the public facilities necessary to travel to and from one’s housing and/or job. Something as basic as sidewalk maintenance is something that, when not done properly, can result in discrimination against people with disabilities. When that happens, the Atlanta disability discrimination lawyers at our firm are here to help people vindicate their rights.

The most recent piece of news in this area comes from outside Georgia, where the City of Philadelphia agreed last month to settle a lawsuit regarding the disability discrimination that allegedly resulted from the city sidewalks’ state of disrepair.

The group who sued alleged that “the City’s sidewalks, curb ramps, crosswalks, and other paths of pedestrian travel are in a state of severe disrepair and disintegration” and the situation was so bad that it violated the Americans With Disabilities Act.

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In a lot of walks of life, some people like to say that “timing is everything.” If you’ve endured employment discrimination in Georgia, timing isn’t everything when it comes to succeeding in a civil action, but it may be the only thing that matters if you fail to meet the law’s filing deadlines. The crucial importance of timely filings — and the catastrophic havoc missed deadlines can create — are just further evidence of why, if you’re the victim of age discrimination at work, you need to ensure you retain the services of a skilled Atlanta age discrimination lawyer right away.

In most discrimination cases, one of your first deadlines is the one for filing a charge of discrimination with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. As one recent age discrimination case from here in North Georgia illustrates, missing this deadline can be devastating to your case.

The time period for filing this EEOC charge varies by state. For most types of discrimination claims, the deadline is 300 days if the state has its own fair employment practices agency (or a local agency) that enforces state/local laws prohibiting that type of discrimination. These kinds of states are called “deferral states.” Continue reading ›

When you’re pursuing an employment discrimination case, the court will be looking for certain types of proof from you, including evidence that the employer treated you less favorably that a similarly situated coworker. “Similarly situated,” in this context, means someone who’s professionally very much like you except that they fall outside the protected class that serves as the basis for your lawsuit. These coworkers are called “comparators” and you can name one or name several. Succeeding in a case that demands comparator evidence means understanding exactly how similar you and that coworker must be, which is one of many areas where having a knowledgeable Atlanta employment discrimination lawyer on your side can be crucial.

As an example, we can consider the race and age discrimination case of K.L., a Black man in his 50s who worked as a security guard at a medical center. The guard’s job entailed guarding “patients who were considered especially at risk for harming themselves or others.” The guard’s employer fired him after he allegedly left a high-risk patient unattended for “some period of time,” during which time the patient escaped.

After the termination, K.L. sued for race discrimination under Title VII and age discrimination under the Age Discrimination in Employment Act.

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