Somerset County Employment Attorneys

Legal Guidance and Representation for Somerset County Employees

Somerset County had a median household income of about $77,000 as of the 2000 census. Some of the major employers in Somerset County include Capgemini, AdvantEdge Healthcare Solutions, Daiichi Sankyo, Bausch & Lomb, Brother International, Catalent, and Avaya. If you have experienced employment discrimination or another form of workplace misconduct, you should consult the Somerset County employment lawyers at Phillips & Associates. We are dedicated to securing justice for employees who have been treated improperly by their employers.

Somerset County employers need to abide by the New Jersey Law Against Discrimination (NJLAD), the New Jersey Family Leave Act NJFLA), and many other federal and state laws. Employees may suffer harm related to disability or family leave, discrimination, harassment, reasonable accommodations, workplace retaliation, hostile work environments, and wage and hour violations, among other issues.

The New Jersey Law Against Discrimination

Under the New Jersey Law Against Discrimination, your employer should not discriminate against you based on a range of protected characteristics, including your color, creed, race, ancestry, national origin, nationality, religion, gender, disability, pregnancy, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, disability, military service, marital or domestic partnership or civil union status, genetic information, and age, as well as sexual harassment

The protection for employees under the New Jersey Law Against Discrimination is usually broader than the anti-discrimination protection found under federal statutes. The NJLAD covers employers regardless of their size, whereas most of the federal anti-discrimination laws apply to companies with at least 15 employees. You might have a claim of discrimination under state law even if you are not protected under federal law. An employment attorney in Somerset County can advise you on which laws may best support your claim.

Unlike federal law, the NJLAD does not require you to file a charge with an enforcement agency before filing a lawsuit in state court. Therefore, you do not need to file a charge with the New Jersey Division on Civil Rights before suing. Also, while your compensatory and punitive damages will be capped under federal anti-discrimination laws (which are enforced by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC)), there are no caps on damages under the New Jersey Law Against Discrimination.

Reasonable Accommodations

One of the characteristics protected under the New Jersey Law Against Discrimination is disability. Both mental and physical disabilities are protected characteristics. Under the New Jersey Law Against Discrimination, your employer is required to give you a reasonable accommodation for your disability unless the nature and degree of your disability reasonably prevent you from performing your job tasks. If your employer denies you a reasonable accommodation, our Somerset County employment attorneys can help you pursue a disability discrimination claim. If you were fired due to a disability, to recover damages, you will need to show that you have a qualifying disability, you can perform the essential job functions with or without an accommodation, and you suffered an adverse employment action (termination, suspension, demotion, etc.) Your employer’s duty to accommodate you arises from your request for assistance in accounting for your disability while doing your job. Reasonable accommodations can include schedule changes, working from home assignments, making facilities readily accessible, the acquisition or modification of equipment, medical leaves of absence, and possibly job reassignments.

If you ask for assistance from your employer, you and your employer are supposed to act in good faith in searching for a reasonable accommodation. To decide which accommodation would meet your needs, the employer is supposed to start an interactive process to identify possible reasonable accommodations that can be adopted to overcome your specific limits arising out of the disability.

However, your employer does not necessarily need to provide the specific accommodation requested, but it does have to work with you in finding what the best accommodation would be. Also, if providing the accommodation would present an undue hardship for the employer, it does not have to provide that accommodation.. To determine whether an undue hardship is presented, courts will look into the size of the business, the number of employees, the operations, the budget and facilities, the nature and cost of the accommodation, and the degree to which providing the accommodation would require the employer to waive an essential job requirement.