Articles Posted in Employment Discrimination

Disability discrimination violates New Jersey employment laws at the state and federal levels. Employers may not take adverse actions against employees or job seekers because of an actual or perceived disability. Employers who violate these rights may be liable for damages. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) is the federal agency tasked with investigating alleged employment discrimination. It occasionally pursues civil lawsuits against employers on employees’ behalf. It recently announced that it reached a settlement with a New Jersey hospital in a lawsuit alleging disability discrimination.

The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) of 1990 uses an expansive definition of disability that includes many conditions, injuries, and illnesses. An impairment may be considered a “disability” if it “substantially limits one or more major life activities” for a person. “Major life activities” may include most daily tasks that people tend to take for granted, as well as most “​​major bodily functions.” Illnesses or conditions that significantly impair the circulatory system, for example, could be considered a disability under the ADA.

Disability discrimination, as defined by the ADA, may include any act, practice, or policy that “adversely affects the opportunities or status” of an employee or job applicant because of their disability. It also includes failing to make reasonable accommodations for an employee or qualified job applicant, when the accommodation would not pose an undue burden on the employer and would enable the individual to perform their job duties more effectively.
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Federal and state employment laws in New Jersey protect workers from discrimination on the basis of disability. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) construes the term “disability” very broadly to include an array of physical and mental conditions. We are still learning about the long-term effects of COVID-19 on some people. The symptoms of “long COVID” can be debilitating. In late 2021, the EEOC updated its guidance regarding COVID-19 to address when the illness may constitute a disability under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). If you are experiencing symptoms associated with a possible disability and are concerned about how you are treated at work, please reach out to a New Jersey employment lawyer to discuss the situation.

The text of the ADA itself contains a rather general definition of “disability.” It covers impairments that “substantially limit[] one or more major life activities.” The statute defines “major life activities” as most daily tasks, such as “sleeping, walking, standing, lifting, bending, speaking, [and] breathing,” to name but a few, along with most “major bodily functions.”

The ADA’s protections apply in three situations:
– People who have a disability, as defined by the statute;
– People who have a “record” of a disability; and
– People who are “regarded as having” a disability.
A worker may experience unlawful discrimination based on a perception that they have a disability, regardless of whether they actually have a disability that impairs a major life activity.
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Workers have long had to juggle their obligations at work and caregiving responsibilities at home. This includes not only parents, but also people caring for elderly relatives, family members with disabilities, and others. The COVID-19 pandemic has made this issue much more pressing. Some jurisdictions have enacted laws that expressly protect people with caregiving responsibilities from employment discrimination. The New Jersey Law Against Discrimination (NJLAD), for example, protects parents and others with caregiving responsibilities for a child. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) recently issued guidance about caregiver discrimination under federal law. While no federal employment law specifically bars discrimination on the basis of caregiver responsibilities, the EEOC identifies ways that such discrimination might still constitute unlawful discrimination. If you care for someone outside of your duties at work and have concerns that those responsibilities are impacting your status at the workplace, contact a New Jersey employment lawyer to discuss your situation.

The NJLAD prohibits discrimination against employees and job applicants on the basis of “familial status.” It defines this as having a “parent and child relationship” under state law, which includes biological parents, adoptive parents, foster parents, and other types of guardians. It also includes people who are pregnant and people who are working to gain legal custody of a minor child. Employers may not refuse to hire someone because of their familial status, nor may they fire them or subject them to other adverse employment actions on that basis.

New York City has one of the most expansive employment discrimination laws in the country. It goes farther than New Jersey law with regard to caregiver discrimination. A “caregiver,” under New York City law, includes a person with an obligation to care for a minor child. It also includes anyone who cares for a close relative or a person living in their household who depends on them “for medical care or to meet the needs of daily living.” The person must be providing “direct and ongoing care.”
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Criminal history can be one of the biggest stumbling blocks in the search for a job. Steady employment is a critically important factor in returning to normal life after a criminal conviction. Many employers, however, do not want to hire anyone with a criminal record, even if the specific details of a job applicant’s history would not affect the job they want to do. New Jersey’s Opportunity to Compete Act (OTCA) states that employers may not ask about criminal history until later in the hiring process. It does not offer as much protection for job applicants as similar laws in other states and cities. At the federal level, discrimination based on criminal history could be unlawful in certain circumstances. A New Jersey employment attorney can help you explore your options if you have experienced this kind of discrimination.

The OTCA only offers limited protection for job applicants with criminal records. It does not restrict how employers may act upon criminal history information once an applicant has made it past the initial stages of the hiring process. If an employer violates the statute, it does not expressly state that a job applicant may file a lawsuit for damage. Instead, it states that the only remedy for a violation is a civil penalty paid to the state.

The Third Circuit Court of Appeals considered a criminal history discrimination claim brought under the OTCA in a 2020 decision. The decision is one of the few to address criminal history discrimination in New Jersey, but it sheds little light on whether the OTCA allows private causes of action.
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Criminal background checks are increasingly common in the hiring process. They often present a major stumbling block for people who are trying to put their lives together after a criminal conviction. Many employers simply refuse to hire anyone with a felony record, regardless of whether the offense has any relation to the job a person is seeking. Employment laws in New Jersey and other states are trying to rectify the situation. The New Jersey Legislature passed the Opportunity to Compete Act (OTCA) in 2014. Federal law does not include specific protections against discrimination based on criminal history, but several provisions of federal law can indirectly affect how employers conduct background checks on job applicants.

When it passed the OTCA, the state legislature recognized the importance of “[r]emoving obstacles to employment for people with criminal records.” It found that as many as 65 million people nationwide faced difficulty finding jobs because of their criminal records, and that up to ninety percent of employers use criminal background checks to some extent during the hiring process. Since having a job “significantly reduces the risk of recidivism” for people with criminal histories, the state legislature concluded that it had to act. The OTCA does not go as far as many similar laws, but it is a step in the right direction.

The OTCA is part of a group of laws passed by state and local governments around the country known as “Ban the Box” laws. The OTCA prohibits employers from asking New Jersey job applicants about criminal history at the beginning of the hiring process. The “box” refers to the “yes/no” checkbox found on many job application forms asking whether someone has ever been convicted of a criminal offense. Checking the box, which indicates that an applicant has one or more convictions, has often resulted in the application going directly into employers’ “rejected” piles.
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Unlawful sex discrimination takes many forms in New Jersey workplaces. Overt discrimination, such as when an employer directly states an intention not to hire individuals of one gender, might not be as common as it once was, if only because it is less socially acceptable in the 21st century. It persists, though, in both blatant and subtle forms. Sex discrimination can also occur when a policy or practice disproportionately affects people of one gender, even if the employer has no intent to discriminate. The Harvard Business Review (HBR) recently published a study that examines these two forms of sex discrimination, calling them “conscious exclusion” and “unconscious bias.” The study offers some useful observations for New Jersey workers.

Disparate Treatment vs. Disparate Impact Discrimination

Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, as interpreted by the courts and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), bars employers from engaging in disparate treatment based on a protected category. It also bars them from maintaining policies or practices that have a disparate impact on employees in a protected category. The New Jersey Law Against Discrimination has similar provisions.

“Disparate treatment” consists of overt acts of discrimination and other acts or omissions that directly affect someone based on their sex or another protected category. Examples include refusing to hire someone because of gender, promoting employees of one gender over employees of another without regard to qualifications or merit, and the various forms of sexual harassment.

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