Federal and Minnesota Law on Employment Retaliation.
Minnesota is an “at-will” employment state. That means that your employer can fire you for any reason or no reason at all – even a stupid, incorrect, unfair, or unethical reason – provided that it’s not an illegal reason.
One illegal reason for making any employment decision about an employee is retaliation or reprisal for making a complaint or report about unlawful discrimination. In order to be unlawful, the retaliation must be because the employee made a report of discrimination on the basis of race, sex, age, disability, or sexual orientation.
Some people think that employers can’t retaliate against employees for any reason – that’s not true. In fact, it’s unfair, but employers can and do lawfully retaliate against employees for all sort of reasons. The only thing that employers cannot retaliate against you for is you making a report of unlawful discrimination. Contact a Minneapolis employment lawyer if you feel you were terminated based on employment retaliation.
Your employer can’t make any decision about you – including hiring, termination, pay, raises, leave, suspension, hours, or discipline – on the basis of your having made a complaint of discrimination. Making employment decisions even partly on that basis constitutes retaliation or reprisal discrimination – and is prohibited by Title VII of the federal Civil Rights Act and state law in the Minnesota Human Rights Act.
If you’ve got the courage to stand up for yourself or others against unlawful discrimination, then your employer can’t punish you for it. Keep in mind that employees don’t need to say the magic words, “I’m making a complaint of discrimination.” So long as the employee opposes discrimination in good faith, that’s enough to earn protection from retaliation.
For example, if any employee tells his employer that he’s been hearing racial slurs in the halls from other employees, that constitutes protected activity for which the employer cannot retaliate. Or if you tell your employer that you believe a certain comment or practice is discriminatory, you’re protected from retaliation. Or if an employee files a claim with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission or Minnesota Department of Human Rights, or testifies in a discrimination lawsuit – those also constitute protected activities. And, of course, if an employee files a lawsuit alleging discrimination, the employer cannot retaliate in any way.
How Do I Prove an Employment Retaliation Claim?
Your employer will probably not admit that it terminated you, laid you off, or “restructured” you out of a job on the basis of you having made a complaint of discrimination. Most employers are too sophisticated for that, and unlawful discrimination is often implicit, subtle, and nuanced.
The first thing we’ll do to prove your retaliation claim is establish that you “engaged in protected activity.” That basically means that you made a report or complaint to a supervisor or manager about some form of unlawful discrimination. We can rely on your testimony alone to prove this up. Of course, if you’ve got an email or other document that you sent to your employer making the complaint – that’s even better.
Next, we’ll look to the “temporal proximity” of your complaint compared to the employer’s action against you. That basically means we’ll see how much time passed between your report of discrimination and when your employer terminated you, wrote you up, reduced your hours, or took other action against you. Many employers are so careless that they’ll take action against complaining employees within days or weeks. If your employer took action against you very shortly after you made your discrimination complaint, that’s great evidence of retaliation – especially if you’ve worked there for a good amount of time.
Sometimes, when employers retaliate, they’ll make up and offer a different, non-discriminatory reason for termination. For example, your employer might claim that it terminated you for poor performance. In order to win on a discrimination claim, employment lawyers have to prove that the reason offered by the employer is a pretextual reason that is just being said so that your employer can avoid having to say the actual, illegal reason for termination – retaliation or reprisal.
We’ve got a couple ways to prove pretext on behalf of employees. First, we try to demonstrate that the reason given by the employer is just factually wrong. So, for example, if your employer claims that it terminated you for poor performance, but actually gave you high performance reviews for a number of years and has no written records of ever giving you discipline or counseling, then we’ve created a fact question for a jury regarding whether the reason given by the employer is the real reason for termination, or just pretext to mask retaliation.
Second, we can prove that the reason given by the employer isn’t the real reason for termination because it wasn’t equally applied to similarly situated employees. So, if your employer claims that it terminated you for poor performance, but your peers actually had equal or worse performance reviews than you – or documented performance problems that you didn’t have – than we’ve created a fact issue regarding whether the employer’s stated reason for termination is the actual reason, or just pretext to mask retaliation
For a legal consultation with a retaliation lawyer serving Minneapolis, call 612-349-2729
Can My Employer Fire Me if I Make a Claim of Retaliation?
No – that’s the whole point. If file a claim with EEOC or MDHR, or file a lawsuit, or even just make a report of discrimination or retaliation to your employer, then your employer cannot retaliate against you in any way.
Minneapolis Retaliation Lawyer Near Me 612-349-2729
How Much is My Retaliation Case Worth?
The short answer is that the value of your case depends on a lot of things, like:
- the strength of your case on the merits;
- the amount of damages you’ve suffered;
- whether your employer has the ability to pay a large amount; and
- your tolerance for risk.
We get this question so much that we’ve created a separate, detailed page going through each of these factors, right here.
Click to contact our Minneapolis Employment Lawyers today
What Kind of Damages Can I get in a Retaliation Case?
For retaliation or reprisal claims, you may be entitled to back pay and front pay damages, emotional distress and other compensatory damages, punitive damages, treble damages (that means your actual damages get multiplied by 3), and your attorney fees and costs.
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What’s an Average Settlement for a Retaliation Case?
That’s a tough question to answer because there’s really no “average” settlement. The value of an employment case depends on the strength of the case; the damages the employee suffered; the ability of the employer to pay a large amount (if the employer is insured, even better); and the employee’s tolerance for risk and willingness to go to trial. Here’s a detailed breakdown of those factors.
But we know that many employees looking for answers right now just want to see some numbers from actual settlements, so here are some numbers.
- We represented a physician, Dr. Roswick, in North Dakota who complained that his clinic was racially discriminating against another physician. The Clinic then terminated Dr. Roswick. We took this case to trial and the jury awarded $1.2 million. More information here.
- We represented an employee, “Sam,” who complained to his employer about anti-Semitic slurs from his fellow co-workers. Even though Sam hadn’t been disciplined for anything in 5 years of employment, in the 2 months after his complaint, he was disciplined and written up 5 different times. Then his employer terminated him for his write ups. That’s called “papering the file” – Sam’s employer wanted to manufacture a reason to terminate him so it wrote him up a number of times after his complaint. We beat the employer’s motion for summary judgment and settled this case for $130,000.
- We represented a police officer against the City of Richfield. He had previously sued the City for age discrimination and won. After he won, the City passed him over for promotion in favor of younger, less-qualified officers. We represented the officer at trial in his age discrimination and retaliation suit against the City – we argued that the City retaliated against him for his successful age discrimination lawsuit by passing him over for promotion. The jury awarded him $50,000 in actual damages and another $25,000 in punitive damages – the most allowed by the Minnesota Human Rights Act.
What Should I do if My Employer Terminated Me for Making a Complaint About Discrimination?
First of all, if you’re searching for answers right now, we’re very sorry that you’re in this position. We know how tough it is to lose your job, especially when you’ve got family and other financial obligations. It’s especially frustrating and hurtful when the termination is just because you stuck up and did the right thing.
Second, make sure that take advantage of state benefits designed to help people going through tough times. Apply for unemployment benefits – here’s a link. And, contact COBRA to make sure you and your family are covered for health insurance.
Third, write everything down that happened to you. Write down the date that you were terminated, who terminated you, what they precisely said was the reason for your termination, and who else was present. Write down whether you think the reason your employer gave you was accurate or not, and why. Write down the names of employees that you think may have useful information. Write down the types of documents or emails that you think may have good information about your case. Write down everything – the reason for this is that your memory will probably fade over time and you want to document things while they’re fresh in your mind. If you pursue a lawsuit, your trial likely won’t be for at least 12 to 18 months, so you want to have something that you can refer to – write everything down.
Fourth, immediately send a letter or email request to your employer requesting your personnel file and the reason for your termination. Under Minnesota law, your employer needs to provide it to you. If your employer hasn’t paid you all of your wages or given you your last paycheck, make sure to request those wages in writing also (by letter or email).
Fifth, call us to talk about your case.
What is the Statute of Limitations for an Employment Retaliation Case?
You need to move quickly on these. In Minnesota, you’ve got just one year from the date of the retaliation to bring a lawsuit or file a claim with the Minnesota Department of Human Rights. You’ve only got 300 days from the date of the retaliation to file a claim with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, if you want to bring federal claims under Title VII, the Americans with Disabilities Act, or the Age Discrimination in Employment Act.
Contact Our Minneapolis and St. Paul Retaliation Attorneys.
You must act quickly when it comes to employment claims. If you wait, there may be strict statutes of limitation that will bar you from filing any claim at all against your employer. Call Madia today to discuss your case.
First, contact our office and tell us about your situation. You’ll talk with our staff for about 5-10 minutes. They’ll get some basic information about you and your case.
There’s some information that we’ll need when you call. We will want to know who you worked for, what kind of work you did, for how long worked there, how much you earned, if/when you were terminated, the reason given by your employer for any discipline and termination, and why do you think your employer did something unlawful or wrongful. If you have this information handy, it will allow us to proceed more quickly.
We will get back to you shortly – usually within a few hours. If your potential case is a little outside of our wheelhouse, we may refer you to attorneys, agencies, or organizations that we think might be better suited to handle your situation. Our goal is to ensure you get the best and most appropriate help possible for your particular situation. If that’s not us, we’ll try to tell you immediately and point you in the right direction.
If we think that we might be able help you, we’ll set an appointment for you to talk with one of our employment lawyers. We’ll discuss your case, and give you our honest assessment of its strengths, weaknesses, and value. If we then mutually agree that Madia will represent you, we will talk about the process of moving forward with your case.
When you talk with our employment lawyers, please be sure to have all relevant documents that you have in your possession. For example, that could include: pay-stubs, personnel files, employment handbooks/policies, letters from your employer (including your termination letter), any text messages or emails that you think are important, and any other documents that you think might be helpful.
Call 612-349-2729 or complete a Case Evaluation form
