Best Ohio Wrongful Termination Lawyer: What should I do if my boss is discriminating against me? Should I file with the EEOC if I was fired because I’m Black? How do I stop sexual harassment at work? How should I find the best employment law attorney in Ohio?
Many employees that feel that they are being discriminated on the basis of race, gender, national origin, religion, or age are pointed to quickly file a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (“EEOC”). Their first reaction may be that this is how the law is set up and that they do not need an employment law attorney. Of course, this means that you are relying on the government and a bunch of government workers to protect you. To be clear, these are good people at the EEOC, but their workload is ungodly. During the EEOC’s 2013 fiscal year, it received 93,727 charges of workplace discrimination. That is over 7,800 per month; over 1,800 per week; and over 250 charges per day.
According to this same report, in 2013, “the EEOC filed 131 merits lawsuits alleging discrimination. Lawsuits filed under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 were the most numerous (78), followed by lawsuits filed under the Americans with Disabilities Act (51).” Let’s put these numbers in context. If you take the 131 merits lawsuits that the EEOC chose to pursue and divide that by the 93,727 charges that were filed, it calculates out to show that the EEOC only chose to pursue 0.13976762299017 percent of the charges is received to suit. That is less than one out of every thousand charges that are filed. How do you like those odds of getting help by the EEOC pursuing a lawsuit? Typically, the EEOC will look for cases that are huge based on value and the number of people effected, or will be newsworthy on a point of law that the EEOC is pushing. And, when the EEOC brags about a big settlement or verdict, remember it is because it cherry picked the very, very, very best cases to try.
Now, to be fair, the EEOC will allow the parties to mediate amongst themselves before deciding whether to give you about a one-tenth of one percent change of getting their support in litigation. Here is the problems: First, your employer or former employer is going to show up with counsel. The EEOC will not give you counsel to help you during the mediation. This creates a very unbalanced field in favor of the employer. Second, the employer and the employer’s lawyer know the above statistics, so what fear should they have about facing a lawsuit. Having an experienced employment law attorney may balance this field for you at the mediation.
Okay, let’s say you are one of the lucky one in a thousand and the EEOC takes your case to litigation. Unfortunately, you have now lost control of your case – or at least what used to be your case. While the EEOC does not promote this fact on any of its main pages, if you did deep enough, or click this link to the EEOC’s litigation rules, you will see that “the General Counsel controls the agency’s litigation, and therefore has the authority to decide whether to settle Commission lawsuits and on what terms.” What that? Yep, you have no authority to decide whether the case against your discriminating employer settles. You need money now to pay rent, to avoid having your car repossessed, or to pay you kid’s college tuition bill? Well, the EEOC might decide to not settle because a jury trial will bring bigger exposure to a pregnancy discrimination or sexual harassment issue. You think that the case is worth more because of the extreme emotional distress that you endured? Too bad, the EEOC has the right to settled the case right out from under you without even asking you what you think about it.
For a moment, let’s circle back to the fact that the EEOC cherry picks what it thinks is the best of the best cases to try – remember the top .1 percent of cases. Now, while the EEOC website practically brags about the sheer number of cases that it “resolved,” note that resolved just means completed. It does not mean resolved in favor of the employee. It just means resolved. So how many of the cases taken on by the EEOC are resolved favorably to the employee? CNN recently presented a good example in pregnancy discrimination cases, which it gives the EEOC only a “25% success rate.” Incredibly, the CNN article goes on to state “Pregnancy discrimination charges are more likely to end in the worker’s favor than other discrimination charges filed with the EEOC, including complaints about race, religion, disability or age-related discrimination in the workplace.” Holly crap! So, there is about a one in a 1,000 chance that the EEOC will take your case and then if they do, there is at most only a 25 percent success rate?
The Ohio Supreme Court‘s rules on ethics prevent us from presenting our success rate, but I can tell you this, we are so confident in our success rate that we take all our cases on a contingency basis, which means that we do not earn a dime unless you get paid. You cannot do that on a low success rate.
The moral of this story is this: do not go it alone with the EEOC. Find an experienced employment discrimination lawyer in your area or call us. If you are searching “I need a lawyer because I have been wrongfully fired or terminated;” or “I have been discriminated against based on my …” race, national origin, gender, age, religion or disability; or even think that you might need an employment lawyer, then it would be best to call the right attorney to schedule a free and confidential consultation at 866-797-6040. Spitz, The Employee’s Law Firm and its attorneys are experienced and dedicated to protecting employees’ rights and solving employment disputes.
Disclaimer:
The materials available at the top of this page and at this employment law website are for informational purposes only and not for the purpose of providing legal advice. If you are still asking, “How do I …”, “What should I do …,” “My boss discriminated against me because …” or “I was fired for …”, it would be best for to contact an Ohio attorney to obtain advice with respect to any particular employment law issue or problem. Use and access to this employment law website or any of the links contained within the site do not create an attorney-client relationship. The legal opinions expressed at or through this site are the opinions of the individual lawyer and may not reflect the opinions of Spitz, The Employee’s Law Firm, Brian Spitz, or any individual attorney.