As an employee, you should know that there can be many reasons for you to sue your employer, including sustaining injury at work, wrongful termination, discrimination, retaliation, as well as unpaid wages.
Here are some of the more common reasons to sue your employer.
Unpaid Wage
If you experience a situation where you haven’t been paid your wages, you can sue your employer. These claims are also known as wage claims and they exist in a variety of different ways. As a rule of thumb, the employer has to pay you for the work you perform.
So, if you find yourself in a situation where they aren’t paying you what they owe you, you might have a wage claim.
For instance, if you are a non-exempt employee, which means that you should be getting paid overtime if you work more than forty hours per week. But your employer refuses to pay you overtime rate despite the fact that you worked more than the defined set of hours every week.
Overtime Claim
In this case, you might want to get a lawyer as you have an overtime claim to collect those unpaid wages. The same goes for unpaid commissions. Suppose you work for commissions, but your employer is refusing to pay you your commission.
Now, you might have a wage claim to collect those unpaid commissions. Another situation that might cause you to sue your employer is in the case of the failure to provide meal and rest breaks. The rules for meal and rest breaks typically vary from one state to another.
However, many states require employers to provide non-exempt workers with meal and rest breaks. If the employers fail to provide these breaks, the worker can sue their employer to collect the wages, for they would have been on break.
Workplace Injury
The general rule is that employees cannot sue their employer when they face a workplace injury. The reason is that most employers are protected from getting sued by their employees under the worker’s comp law.
However, you should know that there are exceptions to the worker’s compensation law, and there can be reasons to hold the employer accountable for damage, loss, and pain and suffering.
For instance, you can get in touch with these injury attorneys in Lexington if you sustained an injury caused by your employer’s or another employee’s willful assault. You can also sue your employer if your employer claims that you are not an employee to benefit from the worker’s compensation law.
You might have gotten injured by a defective device or product that was made by your employer. So, the best thing to do is to discuss your case with a personal injury lawyer so that you know whether or not you can sue your employer.
Illegal Activity
Another reason to sue your employer is when you get fired for reporting your employer’s illegal activity. Usually, such claims are given different names:
- Whistleblower claims
- Wrongful termination claims
- Retaliation claims
As per the general rule, workers have the right to report the illegal activities of their employers. Now, if you report the illegal activities of your employers and you get fired for reporting it – this is usually a violation of law.
Such claims can come up in countless different ways. For instance, if you report your employer about a wage violation by reporting that you aren’t being paid overtime. Then you get fired for reporting it. In this case, you probably have a claim and another reason to sue your employer.
Wrongful Termination
You can sue your employer if you get fired for all the wrong reasons, such as the disclosure of your disability. Such claims are also known as disability discrimination claims. According to the general law, your employer cannot fire you based on your disability as long as you can perform the basic functions of your job.
Usually, such cases are more common than one can imagine. The thing is that when you disclose a disability to your employer, the employer might think that you might not be able to do as much work as you used to do because of the disability.
For instance, if you are at a company where you have been the top performer for a long time. Suddenly, you are diagnosed with a disability or a serious medical condition or injury. You proceed to tell your employer about your medical condition, and as a response, your employer terminates you for some made-up reason.
This scenario is more or less a case of disability discrimination, and you should talk to an employment lawyer about it.
Protected Leave
You can sue your employer if you get fired for taking protected leave. There are many different kinds of leave, but the most common scenario is where you might take FMLA leave to take care of yourself or a sick family member. You might as well take a pregnancy leave to have a baby.
Most states have their own versions of FMLA leave and pregnancy leave laws. But the general rule is that if you take FMLA leave to have a baby or take care of yourself or a sick family member – your employer cannot turn around and fire you for taking that protected leave.
For instance, you have a sick child, and you take an FMLA leave to take care of your child to the point that you have to stay at the hospital with your child, causing you to miss a day of work. In this case, if you are written up for attendance and fired for it shortly after – you are essentially getting fired for taking protected leave.
This aspect also indicates that you might have a claim to sue your employer.
The Takeaway
Before you proceed to sue your employer, it is incredibly important to talk to a lawyer. The reason is that the laws are different in each state. Also, sometimes what might look like a wrongful termination isn’t actually one according to the situation in which one got terminated.
Only a professional employment lawyer or a personal injury lawyer is in the ideal position to tell whether or not you should proceed with suing your employer.
