If you believe you were fired unlawfully, you might first ask yourself: how long do I have to take legal action? These cases generally have short deadlines. In most types of anti-discrimination cases in Arizona, you must file a complaint within 300 days of the discrimination. This complaint is called a “charge of discrimination” and must be filed in a particular way. There are some exceptions to this general 300-day rule, so please read on.
In most discrimination cases, the deadline we are talking about is the deadline to file a charge of discrimination with a federal agency called the EEOC or a state agency called the Arizona Civil Rights Division. A victim of workplace discrimination files with one of the two government agencies (not both). Our office generally prefers filing with the EEOC because the deadlines are more generous to workers and – with one exception – the legal rights are identical. The deadline to file with the Arizona Attorney General is 180 days; the EEOC’s deadline for the same type of discrimination is 300 days.
How do you count time? The 300 days begin to count from the day the employer discriminated against you. For example, if it was a comment made to you by a boss, it’s counted from the day of the comment. If you were fired due to discrimination, it’s 300 days from the day you were fired. But beware: if the employer did more than one discriminatory thing, you need to count the days carefully. For example, if you were first demoted because of discrimination and then fired three months later, you must file within 300 days of being demoted if you want to include both the demotion and firing in the legal case. In that example, if you file within 300 days of the termination but after the 300 days of the demotion, you may not be able to sue for the earlier demotion.
By contrast, if you were a victim of ongoing sexual harassment, the 300 days is counted from the last day of harassment. For example, if you were harassed by a specific co-worker on a daily basis and that co-worker left the job, the 300 days would be measured from the day the co-worker quit or was fired. If you are still working for the company and the harassment is still happening on a regular basis, the discrimination is said to be ongoing and you can file at any time.
There are exceptions. Some of the exceptions favor workers; some do not.
- In Arizona, if you worked for a small business (less than 15 employees) and were sexually harassed, you must file within 180 days rather than 300 days;
- If you were discriminated against on the basis of race and you already missed the 300-day deadline, you may still have a case under a separate law called Section 1981;
- If you were paid less than other co-workers doing the same type of job and you no longer work for the company, you have more than 300 days to take legal action on the unequal pay issue.
If you believe you’ve been discriminated against because of your race, color, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, age, religion, or disability, or if you believe you received unequal pay or were sexually harassed at the workplace, contact our office before too much time goes by to ensure that you aren’t missing important deadlines in your case.
