Discrimination Lawyer Savannah Georgia

If you believe that your employer has treated you wrongly, contact Charles Herman, he is a Discrimination Lawyer in Savannah Georgia. Call (912) 244-3999 to schedule a free consultation with Charles Herman, Savannah Ga Employment and Personal Injury Attorney, so we can sit down and talk about the facts of your case and so that I can give you my opinion about whether or not you have a case.

What types of cases do discrimination lawyers in Savannah Georgia take and what makes a case a good case?

Discrimination lawyers primarily practice in the area of employment law. That is, the majority of the civil rights laws that discrimination lawyers enforce deal with the employment relationship.

Civil Rights Lawyers

There are civil rights lawyers who take cases against public entities such as Sheriff’s offices or police departments for excessive force or related cases where the police overstep the bounds of the constitution and violate the rights of normal citizens. But, those attorneys are not really discrimination lawyers. They are more properly classified as civil rights lawyers or excessive force or police brutality attorneys.

So what makes a case a discrimination case?

First, the case has to involve some type of action against the employee. This is what gets the attention of most of the people who call my office looking for a consultation with a discrimination lawyer.

A common scenario involves a situation where an employer has terminated the employee’s employment. The termination satisfies the requirement of an adverse action. Other actions also include demotions, suspensions, forced leaves of absences, and other disciplinary actions that cost the employee money.

What was the employer’s reason?

The difficulty usually arises when the reason given by the employer for the action is given. For instance, if the employer has a legitimate reason for the action it took – then there is usually no case.

I once was called by a friend who told me he was fired from his job. Adverse action? Check. However, when I asked him why his employer said he was fired he told me his employer said it was because he had not been going to work on time. I asked him if this was true and he said it was.

Was the employer’s reason true and a good reason?

Well, an employer is allowed to depend on its employees to show up to work on time and fire them if they don’t. That’s an example of a good reason, a legitimate non-discriminatory reason to take action against an employee. Also, even if the employer could have just suspended the employee and corrected the behavior, an employer is not required to take the least serious disciplinary action against the employee. Courts will not sit as super personnel offices and second guess employment decisions by employers.

Did the employer lie and make up the reason?

Now, when an employer makes up the reason for termination, that raises red flags. When I ask an employee why they think that they were fired and the employee answers that he or she believes it was because of a characteristic about themselves that they cannot change, then there may be a case if there is proof to back up the employee’s belief.

What characteristics are protected by the law?

Some of those unchangeable characteristics include race, sexual orientation, disability, gender, and age. These are parts of a person that they cannot change and that employers cannot base employment decisions off of. This is the basis of a discrimination case. That the action was taken because of the protected characteristic of the person and not for a good reason. Decisions that take into account protected activities, not protected characteristics, that an employee engaged in – form the basis of retaliation and whistleblower cases (different from, but similar to discrimination cases).

What makes a good discrimination case?

The answer is simple. Direct evidence. A smoking gun. Testimony from a supervisor who no longer works for the employer but is willing to testify that he heard the person making the decision for the employer say that they couldn’t stand having women in the workplace or different races or older workers and that they were going to clean house. Equally good evidence would be text messages or emails expressing that same idea. However, smoking gun evidence is rare. More likely, an employee will have to rely on other evidence that taken together tends to show the real reason was discrimination.