Long Island Sex & Gender Discrimination Lawyer

Employment Litigation Attorneys Helping Long Island Workers

Long Island consists of four counties in New York. Some of its major employers include the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, Sperry Rand, Zebra Technologies, Brookhaven National Laboratory, and Symbol Technologies. It is also the site of the Hauppauge Industrial Park. Sex discrimination in the workplace is illegal in New York. Employers are not permitted to treat employees adversely due to their sex in connection with hiring, firing, terminating, demoting, promotions, pay, or other terms and conditions of employment due to their sex. 

At Phillips & Associates, our Long Island sex discrimination lawyers may be able to help you recover damages if you were harmed due to workplace sex discrimination. We are a contingency law firm, which means there are no upfront fees and no attorney fees unless we recover. Call our employment attorneys today for a free consultation at (866) 229-9441.

Understanding When Sex Discrimination Occurs

Sex discrimination happens when an employer treats a job applicant or employee unfavorably because of that person's sex. For example, if your boss decides not to promote you but instead promotes a less qualified male employee, it is possible that this is sex discrimination. Similarly, if you have a gender-neutral name and were recruited to apply for a job, but then when you went in for an interview on the basis that you were highly qualified for the job, the employer was taken aback that you were female and did not hire you, you might have a claim for sex discrimination.

Sex discrimination is prohibited under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act and the New York State Human Rights Law. Title VII applies only to employers that have at least 15 employees. The state law prohibits sex discrimination when an employer has at least four employees. However, sexual harassment, a type of discrimination, is forbidden no matter how many employees the employer has. A sex discrimination attorney on Long Island can advise you about which of these laws may apply to you.

Title VII forbids sex discrimination in connection with all aspects of employment, and it also forbids sexual harassment as a type of sex discrimination. Sexual harassment could include requests for sexual favors, unwelcome sexual overtures, and sexual innuendoes. It can also be remarks that are not sexual but are about someone's sex.

Sex discrimination can occur when both the perpetrator and the victim are of the same sex. For example, a female manager could discriminate against a woman by allowing harassment of her in the workplace. Similarly, a male manager could discriminate against a male employee.

Damages that a Long Island sex discrimination attorney may be able to help you recover under Title VII if you were a victim of sex discrimination on the job include back pay, front pay, emotional distress, injunctive relief, and punitive damages. Back pay includes any salary or fringe benefits that you would have earned from the time of termination or another adverse employment action to the date of trial. Compensatory damages include emotional distress and pain and suffering damages.

Compensatory and punitive damages are capped based on your employer's size if your lawsuit is brought under Title VII. For example, if you work for an employer with 500 employees, the cap on compensatory damages for an individual is $200,000. Punitive damages may be awarded if your employer engaged in intentional sex discrimination with reckless indifference to your rights. Under the New York State Human Rights Law, there are some overlapping categories of damages, and there are no caps, but you cannot recover punitive damages or attorneys' fees. An employment attorney can help you understand your rights in the workplace.

You may understandably be concerned about filing a charge or lawsuit against your employer for sex discrimination. However, your employer is not permitted to retaliate against you for filing a good-faith complaint of sex discrimination.