Discrimination cases can be tricky. You have to prove that there was adverse action taken against one party when there was none taken against another party, and that can be difficult to do.
Imagine this: There are two individuals. They both have similar stories. They attended the same high school. They both served in the military. They both worked for the same company. What’s different about them? One is African American and one is Caucasian. One was fired and one was not. Let’s consider what we needed to prove for this discrimination case.
The African American party was sent out on a stranded motorist call. Upon arriving, the motorist began to get aggressive. It was the company’s policy that the employee is responsible for walking away from situations in which the motorist becomes angry. Let’s call the emergency roadside assistant Bob. Bob walked away from the motorist. While he was trying to walk away, the motorist grabbed Bob. Bob did not expect that, and did not know what was going to happen beside the road, so he hit the motorist in self-defense. He was suspended and then fired. He had just bought a retirement house, and had been working extra to save for his retirement. He was only two years away from retirement.
Now, let’s look at the other party. We’ll call him Joe. Joe was also called out to help a stranded motorist. In the process, he hit another motorist. The driver of that car got upset and proceeded to throw hot coffee all over Joe. Joe got upset and chased down the driver. When he got to him, he proceeded to punch him 6 times in the face. His actions were against company policy. He was not fired.
Bob had an adverse action taken against him in his case, while Joe did not. We can investigate cases like this by pulling employee files. When Joe’s file was pulled, we saw his rejected workers’ compensation claim, which led us to study the story we just described. We compared and contrasted it with Bob’s case. We took it to their supervisor, who admitted to excusing Joe’s actions. In the face of a discrimination lawsuit, the supervisor decided to settle with Bob. Watch the video to learn more.
You will also find more videos on job discrimination examples on our media page. If you have questions about discrimination on the job, please contact us by email or at 1-312-384-1920 or 1-800-693-1LAW. The Dinizulu Law Group, Ltd., is a Chicago-based employee discrimination and work injury law firm. Our workplace discrimination lawyers from Chicago are here for you. We have represented over thousands of clients across Illinois and neighboring states.
