Employees in White Plains, NY choose to bring claims of discrimination and agencies, such as, the New York State department of human rights or the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, there are also often time’s county commissions on human rights or other commissions in town’s villages and cities where claims can be brought for discriminatory conduct in the employment setting. Furthermore, employees do actually bring those claims in court either before or after or during those administrative claims as well. As an employer you absolutely need legal representation in these settings and an employer who think they can go in and defend this subject, for example, an employment claim. There are serious allegations that are being brought against you, that you engaged in a violence of law in discrimination and maybe perhaps because of the individuals’ race or religion, it could be because of their age or a disability or any number of factors that are protected under the law. These employees are entitled to have representation under the law but they don’t always have representation at these proceedings. You as an employer are entitled to have representation and you should always have representation at these proceedings as a result of the outcome of either a hearing in the United States department of human rights or even a county commission, you are subjected to very similar damages that you would get as if you were sued in court. You can be required to pay back pay, you can be required to pay emotional suffering payment damages and there are also penalties which can be imposed which are somewhat punitive. They are not called punitive damages under the New York state laws they are more of liquidated damages but there are several fines and penalties that are paid to the New York if claims are founded against you and these penalties can often run more than what the damages are that the employee is seeking so it’s really critical that if you are facing this kind of claim that you get representation from adequate company council upfront and right away. You want to develop strategy building and you want to approach it along the lines of that strategy throughout the course of the proceedings so that you make sure you are adequately represented so that at the end of the day you are not facing a huge damage or verdict against you or for example these civil fines and penalties.
This informational blog post was provided by Kim Berg, an experienced White Plains, New York Employment Attorney.
