Maybe you reported harassment to HR. Or perhaps you filed a safety complaint with OSHA. Workplace laws protect activities like these to help workers stay safe and ensure their rights are respected. If your boss fires you for taking those actions, a wrongful termination attorney will help right this wrong.
An experienced employment law attorney will identify the key elements that prove your employer fired you because you took a protected action. By building a strong case that proves your employer penalized you in retaliation, a lawyer helps you secure a payout for lost wages and other damages.
What Counts as a Retaliation Firing?
How do you know you were fired in retaliation?
New York is an “at-will” state, which means your employer has the right to fire you at any time for almost any reason or no reason at all. But there are exceptions to this rule.
It’s important to realize that your boss can’t fire you for taking a protected activity. These are actions that involve exercising your legal rights.
Common triggers for a retaliation firing include:
- Reporting sexual harassment or bias to HR
- Filing workers’ compensation or safety complaints
- Refusing to perform illegal tasks
- Complaining about unpaid overtime
Soon after taking these actions, your employer might have started showing signs of retaliation. These signs include:
- Giving you only negative criticism following your complaint
- Enforcing policies against you but not against others
- Firing you within weeks or months after you engaged in a protected activity
If you experienced any of these signs, you should call a wrongful termination attorney. They will demonstrate that your employer fired you in retaliation, so you’ll be compensated for what you experienced.
It’s best to call an attorney sooner rather than later to make sure you file your claim in time. In New York, the deadline to file a claim varies by the violation, ranging from 180 days to up to 6 years after your boss fired you. To find out when you need to file your claim, be sure to speak with a lawyer about your case.
How a Wrongful Termination Attorney Proves Retaliation Firing
How does a wrongful termination lawyer actually go about proving retaliation? Essentially, they need to prove three key elements. They must demonstrate that: (1) you engaged in a protected activity, (2) you were fired after the protected activity, and (3) the action and the activity are linked.
Employers will likely deny the claim that they fired you in retaliation by denying the causal relationship between the protected action and the firing. They may attempt to tie your termination to unrelated performance issues. But an experienced attorney will demonstrate temporal proximity (the time between the protected activity and the termination) to prove cause. The closer the firing after the protected act, the stronger the link appears.
Securing Compensation After Wrongful Termination
Your attorney’s goal is to help you recover fair compensation after your illegal termination. They will fight to secure a settlement for:
- Lost wages, bonuses, and benefits from the firing date to judgment, and future lost earnings if it’s not possible to rehire you
- Pain and suffering caused by the retaliation, which are based on severity
- Punitive damages if the employer’s conduct was reckless
- Reinstatement of your job
Additionally, courts may order employer policy reforms, training, or monitoring.
In New York, employers can fire you at will. But protected actions ensure you can speak out about unsafe or discriminatory working conditions.
If you lost your job after exercising your rights as an employee, Michelle Cimino is here to help. With over two decades of experience in employment law, she understands how to build a persuasive case that clearly demonstrates wrongful termination. Ultimately, she will help you recover damages after your wrongful termination.
Schedule a Confidential Consultation
If your boss fired you after you took a protected action at your job, they might have done so in retaliation. This is a form of wrongful termination. If this happened to you, you can pursue compensation for lost wages and suffering. An experienced wrongful termination lawyer will help build the strongest case, tying your termination to a protected action and helping secure compensation for the wages you lost and the suffering you experienced.
Michelle Cimino is a Rochester employment lawyer with over 20 years of experience advocating for wrongfully terminated employees. She is ready to secure a settlement that makes things right after you were fired for taking a protected action.
Schedule a confidential consultation today.
