Legal Question in Employment Law in New York
I run a business and majority of my workers are older (over the age of 40) Caucasian females. There are a few males as well. In one of my departments there are all older Caucasian females and one male. This particular male falls in many protected classes. He's the only male, Mexican and in his 20's. As you can see he is very opposite from the rest of the workers in age group, race and gender.
This particular worker is treated different because he is able to do more work (even though he isn't paid more). We give him more difficult assignments and task because I feel he is able to get it down. He has asked his supervisor for assistance that is given to the other employees and the supervisor told him "he doesn't need that type of assistance" while providing this same assistance to the other workers in the department.
I am just founding out the details. The supervisors also made it an obstacle for him to find a relief to cover him for lunch and bathroom breaks. He recorded many of these statements. He even has our HR manager on record trying to defend the actions of one of the supervisors' actions when he went to complain about it.
He wasn't treated this way because of discrimination but rather because he can do the work. But the worker thinks he was treated differently because of discrimination. He falls in so many different protected classes. Recently my company his been contacted by an attorney that is representing this employee. Basically they said that the employee is unhappy and wants to amicably parts ways. They want to discuss a severance package. The employee wants $30,000 as a severance package.
What should I do? $30,000 sound like a lot but the package would also include a wavier of all claims.
1 Answer from Attorneys
The bad news, since your employee already retained an attorney unfortunately you should seriously consider retaining your own attorney and offering a money settlement, because the cost of defending yourself (even against a frivolous law suit by the employee) could be much higher than $30,000. In addition, it is possible that the employee will win or even partially win, in such law suit, which would make it even more expensive and painful.
The good news is that the attorney is 'only' seeking $30,000. I do not want to down play the amount and of course it is a meaningful amount to any small business, but as money demands go this is a relatively low amount. There could be several reasons why a low amount was offered and we can discuss this privately. The effect of this is to allow your attorney to counter this amount with an even lower amount. So at the end of it all, you may end up paying much less. Of course there are no guarantees, but I do think that you have a descent opening round.
I just handled a similar case where a seemingly protected (and rowdy) employee was demanding money and we ended settling for a much lower sum. Please contact me directly.
Roman R. Fichman, Esq.
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