Disability Discrimination

When women and minority supervisors, and other protected classes are maligned by their subordinate employees to those higher in authority over the supervisor, it could affect the supervisor’s employment status.  Supervisors are not insulated from the effects of illegal prejudice and bias of employees who are subordinate to them in authority.

When Biased Animosity of a Subordinate Employee Leads to Their Supervisor’s Demotion or Termination, this Bias May Be Imputed to the Employer Who May Be Held Liable for an Illegal Termination in Some Instances, Even if the Employer, himself, Has No Illegal Prejudice.

Don’t Sit on Your Rights.

If you are an employee who believes you are being discriminated against for illegal reasons, you should contact this office today for a free consultation.

Companies who hire workers are more frequently outsourcing certain traditional responsibilities to another company. Under the New Jersey Law Against Discrimination, courts often treat two differently-named businesses, (or a parent company and its subsidiary) as "joint employers" if one company, or the parent company, exercises substantial control over some of the other’s operations, or employment decisions, HR policies, or conditions of work. Naming all connected entities ensures that the one company cannot use a technicality to avoid liability.

Sometimes an employee is hired by a company and his paychecks are paid by a different company. Or the hiring company tells the employees if they think there is discrimination, they should report it to HR, but the HR department is within another named company.

When an employee files a discrimination or retaliation claim, it is important to identify the correct employer. Sometimes an employee works for a business which has a parent corporation. A dominating parent corporation may use a subsidiary corporation to hide engaging in illegal, fraudulent or wrongful conduct in an attempt to avoid liability. In other situations, even when the parent company is not willfully and knowingly engaging in wrongful conduct, the parent company may be held liable for the actions of the smaller company under one of two legal doctrines: the “Integrated Employer Doctrine” or the “Joint Employer Doctrine.”  The “Integrated Employer Doctrine” is when both the parent and smaller company are upon examination of certain facts, one single employer.

Yes. If you are a covered New Jersey employee who is terminated in a mass layoff according to the conditions set forth in the New Jersey WARN Act, you are entitled to severance pay. Generally, NJ employers are not required to give severance pay to terminated workers unless there is a contractual term between the employer and worker that stipulates the conditions and rate of pay. If there is a collective bargaining agreement (CBA) that stipulates the conditions for severance, then severance must be paid according to the terms of the CBA.

However, in the case of a mass layoff in New Jersey, NJ workers are entitled to severance pursuant to the terms in the New Jersey WARN Act, N.

New Jersey laws mandates that an employer may not discriminate against an employee in the terms and conditions of employment because they perceive the employee to be disabled. The employee does not,  in fact,  have to actually be disabled. If the employer discriminates against an employee because he perceives him to to be disabled, it is a violation of the employee’s civil rights under the NJ Law Against Discrimination (NJLAD). This may happen when the employee had a prior disability from which he is now fully recovered, such as from a sports injury, cancer, certain heart-related events. When an employee has a history of a disability, the employer may perceive them to be disabled long after they are no longer disabled.

A Performance Improvement Plan, PIP, standing alone with no other evidence and no other action, is not necessarily considered an actionable “adverse action” for a discrimination claim. However, when there is other evidence of discrimination, an undeserved PIP may be an illegal attempt to hide an illegal discriminatory motive in a termination. Employees who are given a Performance Improvement Plan, generally are given 30 or 60, or less frequently, 90 days to meet the goals of the PIP or face a possible termination. Unscrupulous employers who want to terminate a worker who is in a protected class, such as race, age, sex,  etc., for discriminatory reasons may give a PIP to the worker with vague goals, no clear language or bench marks, to have a bogus excuse to fire the worker, in a pre-emptive strike to build a legal defense in the event the employee subsequently files a discrimination lawsuit.

Employee supervisors may gaslight workers with disabilities or otherwise treat them in a dismissive manner, exclude them from meetings, etc. Co-workers may tell jokes regarding a disability or make fun of certain disabilities. This dismissive treatment may become severe or pervasive enough to make an employee believe that their working environment is hostile or abusive. They may wonder if they have an actionable claim of a hostile work environment under the New Jersey Law Against Discrimination. 

Don’t sit on your rights.

Obesity alone without other limitations currently is not automatically considered a civil right protected class of “disability” under the New Jersey Law Against Discrimination. However, if obesity has caused an employee to have other medical conditions, such as cardiovascular disease, Type II diabetes, lack of physical coordination, the employee will be considered disabled.

American Medical Association (AMA) has designated obesity as a disease. Its rational was that obesity is a disease that leads to other limiting medical conditions that are recognized disabilities, such as cardiovascular disease. Although the New Jersey Courts, and the NJLAD have not included obesity when standing alone as a disability, NJ employees who are harassed, fired, demoted, or otherwise treated worse at their jobs because they are overweight may be protected when they have other limiting conditions.

Increasing numbers of employees are caring for aging parents and must take a leave from their employment to care for the needs of an older parent. If you are a New Jersey employee who is covered under New Jersey’s Family Leave Act, you are entitled to leave time to take care of parents or other family member with a significant health issue. Covered employers must restore employees to the same or an equivalent position upon return from the family leave, i.e., restoration to a position with the same pay, benefits, and seniority.

There is good news on the horizon for the majority of New Jersey employees, in that shortly before leaving office, former New Jersey Governor Philip Murphy signed into law Senate bill 2950 and Assembly bill 3451 which greatly expands protections for Family Leave for the majority of New Jersey employees. The bill takes effect on July 14, 2026. The signed A3451/S2950 amended the New Jersey Family Leave Act several major ways to cover more employees by broadening eligibility for employee job-protected leave under the New Jersey Family Leave Act and by covering more employers under its definitions.

The New Jersey Family Leave Act allows covered employees to take unpaid time off from work to take care of a care of a sick or disabled relative, including to care for seriously ill aging parents, (even if the illness is temporary) or a spouse, or other relative.  The New Jersey Family Leave Act also allows covered employees to take unpaid time off from work when there is a birth or adoption of a child.

In New Jersey, commissions always constitute "wages" whenever a NJ employer compensates an employee by paying a commission for labor or services rendered by the employee. Commissions are not “supplementary incentives” under New Jersey's Wage Payment Law.

Commissions are “wages” and as wages, commissions have all the legal protections of New Jersey Wage Payment Law (WPL), N.J.S.