Fresno Age Discrimination Attorney

Age discrimination occurs when an employee over the aged of 40 is treated less favorably than other employees because of age. Also, if the employee is subject to an adverse employment action, such as termination, retaliation, or hostile work environment because of his or her age, then age discrimination may have occurred. By having a skilled Fresno Age Discrimination Attorney by your side, large corporations cannot escape liability for their illegal behavior.

While it may seem that America has made strides to protect the aging population in the face of the technological revolution, progress still needs to be made. Over 60 percent of employees between the ages of 45 to 74 say they have faced some form of age discrimination by their employers.

In order to prove age discrimination, you must show that 1) you were terminated or subject to an unfavorable employment action, 2) you are over the age of 40, 3) your age was a substantial motivating factor in the adverse employment action, and 4) you were harmed. The Fresno Age Discrimination Attorney at Miracle Mile Law Group will help prove these elements to win your age discrimination case.

If you can prove these elements, the burden shifts onto the employer to show that they had a legitimate business reason to subject you to the treatment. However, employers will rarely say that they dislike you because of your age. Some common examples of subtle tactics employers engage in include:

• Failing to hire you or passing you over for promotions in favor of a younger, less-skilled person because your supervisor wants “fresh energy” in the building
• After serving the company for many years without a single negative performance evaluation, you are given your first negative evaluation for something minor or irrelevant
• Your company has a mass layoff, but coincidentally all of the people who are let go are over the age of 40
• When it is time for new training opportunities, you are excluded

Mass layoffs, where the overwhelming majority of people laid off are over the age of 40, may be indicative of what is known as disparate treatment discrimination. Disparate treatment discrimination occurs when a company implements a policy that looks like it has no discriminatory motive (i.e. neutral), but in reality, the impact primarily effects a certain class of people disproportionally.

However, mass layoff and disparate impact discrimination is a tricky area of law requiring a specialized knowledge of employment law. Contact us today to see if you have a claim for age discrimination through a disparate impact theory of liability.