A discrimination lawsuit is a civil case in which an employee asks a court to hold an employer accountable for treating them worse because of a protected characteristic like race, sex, age, religion, national origin, or disability. For most federal claims you cannot walk straight into court. You first file a Charge of Discrimination with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, wait for its investigation or a right-to-sue letter, and then file a complaint in court within 90 days. Deadlines are short and strictly enforced at every step, and a single missed one can end an otherwise strong case.
What Counts as Discrimination
Federal law protects a defined set of traits, and each statute has its own reach. Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 covers race, color, religion, sex, and national origin at employers with 15 or more employees.1Legal Information Institute. Title VII In Bostock v. Clayton County, the Supreme Court held that firing someone for being gay or transgender is sex discrimination under Title VII.2Supreme Court of the United States. Bostock v. Clayton County, Georgia, 590 U.S. 644 (2020) The Pregnant Workers Fairness Act, effective in 2023, requires covered employers of that same size to provide reasonable accommodations for known limitations related to pregnancy, childbirth, or related conditions, unless doing so would cause undue hardship.3U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Pregnant Workers Fairness Act
The Age Discrimination in Employment Act protects workers age 40 and older and applies to private employers with 20 or more employees and to state and local governments regardless of size.4U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967 The Americans with Disabilities Act covers employers with 15 or more employees and requires reasonable accommodations for qualified workers whose impairments substantially limit a major life activity, again subject to undue hardship.5U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. The ADA – Your Responsibilities as an Employer The Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act bars using genetic information, including family medical history, in employment decisions.
If your employer is too small to meet these thresholds, federal law other than the ADEA likely doesn’t reach you. State and local civil rights laws often do, and they sometimes add protections federal law doesn’t cover at all, like marital status, criminal history, or caregiver status.6U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Section 2 Threshold Issues
The prohibited conduct itself breaks into a few familiar shapes. Disparate treatment is intentional: the employer rejected you, demoted you, or fired you because of a protected trait. Disparate impact is a neutral policy, like a fitness test or an educational requirement, that disproportionately screens out a protected group without a legitimate business justification. Harassment becomes actionable when it is severe or frequent enough to create a work environment a reasonable person would find hostile or abusive. A single stray comment usually isn’t enough; a pattern of slurs, threats, or degrading conduct is.
Retaliation deserves its own flag because it drives a huge share of EEOC charges. Federal law makes it illegal for an employer to punish you for opposing discrimination, filing a charge, or participating in an investigation.7Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 42 U.S. Code 2000e-3 – Other Unlawful Employment Practices Retaliation doesn’t have to be a firing. A worse shift, a sudden pattern of writeups for minor mistakes, or a cut in hours can all qualify if the timing points that way.
The Deadlines That Decide Whether You Have a Case
You generally have 180 calendar days from the discriminatory act to file an EEOC charge. That deadline extends to 300 days if a state or local agency enforces its own anti-discrimination law covering the same conduct. For age discrimination, the 300-day extension only applies when there is a state law prohibiting age discrimination and a state agency enforcing it; a local ordinance alone doesn’t count.8U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. How to File a Charge of Employment Discrimination
Once the EEOC issues a Notice of Right to Sue, you have exactly 90 days to file your lawsuit. Miss that window and you will almost certainly lose the claim.9U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Filing a Lawsuit
One important exception. Section 1981 of the Civil Rights Act of 1866 protects the equal right to make and enforce contracts without respect to race and applies to all private employers regardless of size. Because individuals enforce Section 1981 themselves, you can file directly in court without an EEOC charge, and the statute of limitations is four years.10U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Other Employment and Civil Rights Laws Not Enforced by the EEOC For race discrimination, lawyers routinely pair a Title VII charge with a Section 1981 suit to get the benefits of both.
How the EEOC Charge Works
You file a Charge of Discrimination through the EEOC’s online public portal or at a field office. The charge is a signed statement identifying your employer, describing what happened, and explaining why you believe it was discriminatory.8U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. How to File a Charge of Employment Discrimination Be specific. Give the employer’s full legal name, exact dates, names of witnesses, and anything in writing you can point to. A vague narrative invites dismissal before anyone reaches the merits.
After the charge is filed, the EEOC may offer mediation, which is voluntary and confidential. If mediation doesn’t happen or doesn’t resolve the case, the agency investigates. If it finds reasonable cause to believe discrimination occurred, it tries to resolve the matter through conciliation. If conciliation fails, the EEOC can file its own suit against the employer or issue you a Notice of Right to Sue so you can proceed on your own. If the agency finds no reasonable cause, it issues a Dismissal and Notice of Rights, which still gives you the right to sue.11U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. What You Can Expect After a Charge Is Filed
You don’t have to wait forever. If more than 180 days have passed since you filed the charge, you can request a right-to-sue notice yourself without waiting for the investigation to finish.9U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Filing a Lawsuit
Check Your Contract First
Before you plan a lawsuit at all, read your employment agreement. Many American workers have signed contracts with mandatory arbitration clauses that push disputes into private arbitration instead of court. The Federal Arbitration Act routinely requires enforcement of these clauses, and most also include class-action waivers that block you from joining a group claim. The FAA’s main built-in exemption is for transportation workers like truckers, airline employees, and railroad workers.
One significant carve-out matters. The Ending Forced Arbitration of Sexual Assault and Sexual Harassment Act, signed into law in March 2022, lets employees choose to pursue sexual assault or sexual harassment claims in court regardless of any pre-dispute arbitration agreement.12U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. EEOC Chair Applauds Passage of Ending Forced Arbitration Act The choice belongs to the person bringing the claim, not the employer.13Congress.gov. H.R.4445 – Ending Forced Arbitration of Sexual Assault and Sexual Harassment Act of 2021 For other kinds of discrimination, a valid arbitration clause will generally keep you out of court. The EEOC itself is not bound by your arbitration agreement and can still investigate and sue on your behalf, though it does so in only a small fraction of cases.
Taking the Case to Court
You start the lawsuit by filing a Complaint in the appropriate federal district court. The complaint identifies the parties, lays out the facts, names the laws your employer violated, and specifies the relief you want. The statutory federal civil filing fee is $350, with an administrative fee that brings the total to roughly $405.14Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 28 U.S.C. 1914 – District Court Filing and Miscellaneous Fees If you can’t afford it, you can apply to proceed in forma pauperis by submitting an affidavit showing inability to pay.15Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 28 U.S. Code 1915 – Proceedings In Forma Pauperis State court fees vary widely.
After filing, you formally notify the employer through service of process, which usually means someone other than you delivers the summons and complaint to the employer’s registered agent. The defendant then has 21 days to file an Answer, or 60 days if it waived formal service.16Cornell Law School. Federal Rules of Civil Procedure Rule 12 – Defenses and Objections
Discovery is where the case actually gets built. Both sides exchange information through interrogatories (written questions answered under oath), document requests (emails, personnel files, policies, performance reviews), and depositions (recorded live questioning of witnesses and decision-makers). In disability cases, the employer may also request an independent medical examination. Discovery is slow and expensive, and most cases settle before it finishes.
Expect a motion for summary judgment from the employer before trial. The employer will argue the undisputed facts entitle it to win without a trial. The court grants summary judgment only when there is no genuine dispute about the key facts, so your task is to show that reasonable people could disagree about what happened and why.17U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. A Guide to Summary Judgment for Unrepresented Complainants Weak cases die here. Strong cases prove their value and move on to trial.
How Discrimination Gets Proved
Direct evidence, like a manager’s email saying “we need someone younger for this role,” is rare. Most cases rely on circumstantial evidence analyzed through a three-step framework called the McDonnell Douglas burden-shifting test, named after a 1973 Supreme Court case.
The plaintiff first builds a prima facie case: showing enough facts to raise an inference of discrimination, such as belonging to a protected class, being qualified, suffering an adverse action, and the employer treating comparable people outside the class differently.18Legal Information Institute. Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA) The employer then has to articulate a legitimate, nondiscriminatory reason for its decision. Finally, the plaintiff must show that reason is pretext, meaning either false or not the real motivation. Shifting explanations, inconsistent discipline for similar conduct, and suspicious timing all support pretext. This is where most cases are won or lost.
What You Can Recover
The relief depends on which statute you sued under, the kind of harm, and the size of the employer. Common remedies include:
- Back pay for the wages and benefits lost from the discriminatory act through trial.
- Front pay for future lost wages when reinstatement isn’t practical.
- Compensatory damages for emotional distress and other non-wage harm.
- Punitive damages when the employer’s conduct was especially reckless or malicious.
- Reinstatement or promotion by court order.
For Title VII and ADA claims involving intentional discrimination, Congress capped the combined total of compensatory and punitive damages based on employer size:19Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 42 U.S. Code 1981a – Damages in Cases of Intentional Discrimination
- 15 to 100 employees: $50,000
- 101 to 200 employees: $100,000
- 201 to 500 employees: $200,000
- More than 500 employees: $300,000
These caps apply per complaining party and cover only compensatory and punitive damages. Back pay and front pay are not subject to them.20U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Remedies For Employment Discrimination ADEA claims don’t allow compensatory or punitive damages at all; instead, willful violations can produce liquidated damages equal to double the back pay award. Section 1981 race discrimination claims have no statutory damage cap, which is another reason lawyers often file them alongside Title VII claims.
Paying a Lawyer
Most employment discrimination attorneys work on a contingency fee, taking a percentage of the recovery and charging nothing upfront if you lose. The percentage usually falls between 25% and 40%, with cases headed for trial at the higher end. Litigation costs like deposition transcripts, filing fees, and expert witnesses are typically separate from the contingency percentage and may come out of your share.
Federal anti-discrimination statutes also contain fee-shifting provisions that let a court order the losing employer to pay your attorney’s reasonable fees. Congress built this in because discrimination plaintiffs often can’t afford to hire lawyers, and the mechanism makes these cases financially viable to take even when expected damages are modest. Fee-shifting applies on top of any damages award, not as a deduction from it.