Address Mistreatment With A Workplace Harassment Attorney In Florida

In Florida, the law protects workers from discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, pregnancy, age, disability and marital status. The toll of experiencing discrimination at work can be devastating and far-reaching. It can damage your financial security, harm your mental health and shake your confidence in ways that affect every part of your life. You need a dedicated workplace harassment attorney in Florida to advocate for your rights to a work environment free of prejudice and bias.

At Cornell & Associates PA, we bring a unique perspective to employment laws. Our founder, Ware Cornell, is an experienced workplace harassment attorney in Florida who has represented both employees and employers in discrimination cases in Florida. This gives him a unique insight into how these matters unfold from all perspectives. With decades of combined experience and deep roots in Fort Lauderdale, Miami-Dade and Broward counties, we stand ready to deliver personalized attention to every case we handle.

Types Of Workplace Harassment And Discrimination In Florida

Workplace discrimination and harassment take many forms. Recognizing these is the first step toward protecting yourself. We regularly help clients who have experienced these common forms of workplace misconduct:

• Sexual harassment: This includes unwanted sexual advances, requests for sexual favors, inappropriate touching, offensive jokes or comments, and displaying inappropriate pictures or objects of a sexual nature.
• Discriminatory harassment: This involves offensive jokes, slurs, name-calling, ridicule or mockery targeting your protected traits.
• Personal harassment: This covers intimidation, threats, physical assaults, insults, put-downs and deliberate actions that interfere with your work performance.
• Verbal harassment: This involves repeated yelling, belittling comments, public humiliation and demeaning language that attacks your dignity at work.

If you have faced any form of harassment or discrimination at work, you have legal rights under Florida and federal employment law, and a relentless workplace harassment attorney can help you advocate for them.

Understanding Your Rights: Discrimination And Harassment FAQs

With decades of experience serving clients throughout Florida, we have seen firsthand the many forms of harassment that occur in the workplace. Below are the answers to the questions we receive most frequently from our clients. If your specific situation is not covered here, we welcome you to contact us for a confidential consultation about your workplace rights.

What qualifies as workplace discrimination?

Broadly speaking, workplace discrimination occurs when an employer subjects certain employees or job applicants to disparate and unfavorable treatment based on a characteristic of that person (their race, gender, age, etc.). The unfavorable treatment may be related to hiring/promotions, firing, working conditions, pay or numerous other aspects of the employment experience.

In many cases, discrimination is intentional. But in some cases, even unintentional discrimination is illegal. For instance, if an employer enacts a seemingly unbiased policy that applies to all workers yet has a disparate, negative impact on one group of workers, that may constitute illegal discrimination.

How do I prove workplace discrimination?

There are certainly times when discrimination is obvious because employers are either unable to or unwilling to mask their biases. In most cases, however, employers take care to disguise their motives in order to protect themselves against liability. Proving discrimination can be difficult based on the treatment of one worker. But if you’ve been discriminated against based on a certain characteristic (like race), chances are good that others have faced discrimination as well. Therefore, you may be able to find evidence of larger company practices that demonstrate disparate treatment of other workers or applicants who share that characteristic.

If you know you’ve experienced discrimination but don’t have enough evidence yet, you can contact an attorney about the best ways to obtain that evidence before taking official legal action.

What are illegal employment practices?

These are actions that employers take in violation of labor laws and anti-discrimination laws. Labor law violations would include things like purposely misclassifying employees, requiring employees to work off the clock without paying them, refusing overtime pay when it is merited and similar violations. Illegal discriminatory practices include disparate behaviors toward certain employees or job candidates based on one or more protected characteristics. Many examples of behaviors are listed in the questions above. Protected characteristics are discussed below.

Which characteristics are protected against discrimination?

Discrimination in employment, housing and education was notably addressed in the federal Civil Rights Act of 1964. That legislation enumerated specific “protected classes,” or characteristics that were prohibited as a basis for discrimination. All states adopted this list in their own laws, and most have expanded the list over time.

Under federal and/or Florida law, it is illegal to discriminate against a worker or job candidate based on:

• Race/color
• Religion
• National origin
• Gender or gender identity
• Gender-related matters like pregnancy, childbirth and breastfeeding
• Sexual orientation
• Disability
• Citizenship status (if legally allowed to work in the U.S.)
• Genetic information
• Age (for workers 40 and older)
• AIDS/HIV status
• Sickle cell trait
• Marital status

These protections should apply universally to any business. Unfortunately, many small employers are exempt from some or most of these requirements. Therefore, you should check with an attorney about whether your employer can be held liable for violating your rights under these laws.

What’s the difference between workplace harassment and a hostile work environment under Florida law?

Workplace harassment involves offensive conduct based on a protected characteristic. A hostile work environment, on the other hand, is the legal standard that harassment must meet to violate the law. To prove a hostile work environment in Florida, you need to show that the harassment was objectively offensive to a reasonable person and that you have found the behavior offensive.

Do I need to report harassment to HR before filing a legal claim?

You do not legally need to report harassment to HR before filing a claim, but doing so can strengthen your case significantly. Reporting harassment internally gives your employer a chance to address the problem and creates an official record of your complaint. If your employer fails to take action after you report the issue, this failure can support your legal claim.

Connect With A Seasoned Workplace Harassment Attorney In Florida

Contact our skilled discrimination attorney today for a confidential consultation. You can reach out to us by calling 954-271-0554 or completing this online form. We understand what you are going through and know how to protect your rights.