Employer retaliation can leave you without an income and struggling to find work. Do employers have the right to fire you or otherwise punish you for reporting their negligent or abusive behavior? No – but they may still try. Fortunately, our Cleveland retaliation lawyers can help you fight back.
Cooper Elliott has secured over $700 million in the name of injured clients. We don’t balk in the face of an employer’s threats, especially not when evidence of their retaliatory behavior is clear as day. We’ve served in Ohio’s civil courts since 1995, and we’re ready to represent you. Contact our civil rights lawyers in Cleveland to learn more about our services.
Identifying Workplace Retaliation
How do you know when you’ve become a victim of workplace retaliation? “Retaliation” describes behaviors that compromise your well-being as well as your ability to continue working in a specific workplace. Some of the most common examples of workplace retaliation include the following:
- Deliberately making a workplace as hostile as possible in an effort to prompt someone to quit their job
- Wrongfully reducing a person’s pay or cutting into their responsibilities
- Unlawfully reducing a person’s hours without good reason
- Transferring a person into a position they’re not trained for or that gives them fewer opportunities to grow
- Demoting a person
- Firing a person
If you suspect you’re falling victim to workplace retaliation, make sure you take notes about your supervisor’s behavior. If you can, save emails, take photos, and create legal recordings of important conversations. This data may help you hold bad-faith employers accountable for their misconduct down the road.
You Have the Right to Engage in Protected Activities
What is a protected activity? The state of Ohio classifies certain activities among those for which an employer cannot legally punish you. In other words, no employer may revoke a promotion or fire you if you:
- Report discriminatory behaviors or sexual harassment
- Investigate failures into their failure to pay minimum wages
- Alert the Ohio Civil Rights Commission or Equal Opportunity Commission about overtime violations or other workplace mistreatment
- Participate in investigations into workplace misconduct
Employers who do attempt to negatively impact your career after you engage in one of these behaviors open themselves up to lawsuits.
For a free legal consultation with a retaliation lawyer serving Cleveland, call 614-481-6000
When to Contact a Cleveland Retaliation Lawyer
When should you hire a civil rights lawyer? It’s in your best interest to contact an experienced lawyer the moment you suspect you may be the victim of retaliation. You cannot let retaliation go unanswered. The longer you wait to act, the less available key evidence may become.
The statute of limitations applicable to your retaliation case will vary based on the specific circumstances that led you to experience retaliation. If you want to file a claim with a civil court, you need to act within two years of an incident. If you want to file with The Ohio Civil Rights Commission, you have six months to act.
We Can Gather Evidence of Employer Misconduct
If an employer has already removed you from your job, you may not have the means to return to that workplace and gather evidence of misconduct. Fortunately, our team can work with professional investigators to initiate an investigation in your name. We can also work with you to gather relevant data from your:
- Phone records
- Text messages
- Emails
- Physical letters and other exchanges
- Recordings
- Photos and videos from the workplace
Our Cleveland retaliation attorneys use all of this data to argue for your right to loss-based compensation. We don’t have the right to bring your case forward unless we have data proving that an employer intentionally made your work life harder.
We Can Negotiate a Settlement With Your Employer
If you can accuse an employer of violating your civil rights, you can win the right to ask for damages based on the cost of that retaliation. In most cases, a retaliation claim will give you the right to demand compensation for your lost or reduced wages, denied promotions, emotional distress, pain and suffering, and stress.
You can determine the value of the settlement you want to request from an ex-employer by finding the sum of your economic and non-economic retaliation losses. Our team can even step in and do the math for you. We can then refer back to our estimate of your case’s value as your fight for compensation progresses.
We don’t let employers minimize your losses or gaslight you into thinking you didn’t undergo discrimination. You can learn more about the settlements we’ve secured in the past on our results page.
Cleveland Retaliation Lawyer Near Me 614-481-6000
We Customize Our Cases to Suit of Clients’ Needs
We believe that each of our clients deserves to work with an attorney who will take an individualized approach to their case. “Retaliation” serves as an umbrella term for a wide range of behaviors. There’s not going to be a one-size-fits-all approach to your fight to recover your job, a stream of income, or your reputation.
Fortunately, we’ve spent almost 30 years in the business. In that time, our retaliation lawyers in Cleveland, OH, have helped hundreds of retaliation victims hold their ex-supervisors accountable for that misconduct. We offer our representation on a contingency basis, ensuring everyone from every income bracket can get the legal advice they need.
Click to contact our Cleveland Civil Rights Lawyers today
It’s Time to File Your Retaliation Claim
No one deserves to have an employer ruin their future out of spite. You have the legal right to report an employer’s misconduct or workplace violations without the fear of retaliation. In this vein, you have the right to take legal action if a supervisor tries to punish you for doing your due diligence.
If you need help holding an employer accountable for unchecked retaliation, contact our retaliation attorneys in Cleveland, OH, today. Your case consultation with our lawyers comes free of charge and doesn’t obligate you to pursue a civil case.
We’re ready to explore the legal avenues that allow you to respond to retaliation.
Call or text 614-481-6000 or complete a Free Case Evaluation form
