As skilled Westchester County Employment Attorneys, we often hear from employees seeking to bring a claim of discrimination in New York State. In New York, you can sue in any number of locations. One could be, for example, before an agency referred to as the New York State Division of Human Rights. In that forum you have less formality, there’s no rules of evidence which can apply, you can have counsel but you’re not required to, and the damages that you can seek at the end of the hearing are pretty much equivalent to what you could be able to recover in a court.
There are time frames that differ in that agency and it’s a shorter time frame to sue. You can also sue, for example, in New York Supreme Court, bringing your claim of discrimination there, where again you can seek similar damages as you could before the agency. Finally, you could sue in federal district court and there you would be bringing both, hopefully, state and federal law claims. Under federal law you have an advantage of being able to sue for your attorney’s fees given that you prevail in that claim of discrimination, so that’s certainly something to explore if you’re within the time frame to sue and hopefully can get your case into that forum.
If you have questions regarding bring a claim of discrimination, contact our experienced Westchester County Employment Attorneys today for a free confidential consultation.
This informational blog post was provided by Kim Patricia Berg, one of our experienced Westchester County Employment Attorneys.
