Filing a lawsuit
Remember, at the start of this article we
discussed that some claims require the filing of a charge with the EEOC and other claims
do not. As a result, the discussion of when a lawsuit must be filed in federal district
court depends upon what type of claim is being made.
As discussed in
previous pages, if the claim arises under the
Age Discrimination in Employment Act (age discrimination), Title I of the Americans with
Disabilities Act (disability discrimination) or Title VII (national origin, pregnancy,
race, religious or gender discrimination); then an employee will have 90 days after the
issuance of a right to sue letter to file a lawsuit in federal district court.
If the claim arises under Title II of the
Americans with Disabilities Act or the Rehabilitation Act (disability discrimination by
certain government employers or private employers who do work for the federal government),
42 U.S.C. Section 1981 (race discrimination) or 42 U.S.C. Section 1983 (denial of Equal
Protection); then the courts look to the most similar state law to determine how long the
employee has to file suit (in other words, the "statute of limitations").
Therefore, the time that an employee has to file suit will depend upon the appropriate
statute of limitations in the state in which he or she lives.
For example, in Tennessee the appropriate state
statute of limitations is one year. Therefore, if I believe I have a 42 U.S.C. Section
1981 race discrimination action against my employer because I was just demoted, I must
file suit within one year. Remember that many courts will start the statute of limitations
as of the date the employee learns of the decision that he will be demoted (or fired, or
not promoted, etc.) and not the date of the actual demotion.
On the other hand, the Equal Pay Act and the
Family and Medical Leave Act contain their own statute of limitations. Under both Acts,
the employee has two years to file suit. However, if the violation of the Act was willful,
then the employee has three years.
