What Is Marital Status Discrimination?

You may consider your marital status (i.e., single, married, separated, divorced, or widowed) to be a personal matter that has no effect on your job performance and thereby has no place to be a relevant topic of discussion in your workplace. However, it is an unfortunate truth that your employer may unnecessarily and unfairly take your marital status into account when making employment-based decisions on your behalf. Continue reading to learn what is considered marital status discrimination in the workplace and how an experienced employment discrimination attorney in Gloucester County, NJ, at The Vigilante Law Firm, P.C., can work to ensure you achieve justice in the matter.

What is considered marital status discrimination in the New Jersey workplace?

To reiterate, marital status discrimination may be seen when an employer treats you poorly due to your being single, married, separated, divorced, or widowed. As an example, such discrimination may be when a single employee gets treated differently, and especially less favorably, than their counterparts who are instead married. More specific examples of what is considered unlawful marital status discrimination read as follows:

• An employer may refuse to approve an employee for a raise or a promotion because they are single without a family to support.
• An employer may refuse to hire a candidate because of who they are married to (unless their relationship is with a current employee).
• An employer may participate in harassing behavior against an employee upon discovering they are involved in a same-sex marriage.
• An employer may take adverse action against a single employee upon discovering they have participated in sexual activities outside of the workplace.
• An employer may take disciplinary action against a married employee upon discovering they have participated in extramarital affairs outside of the workplace.

What are possible remedies for being made the victim of such discrimination?

Namely, New Jersey’s Law Against Discrimination bans employers from making negative employment-based decisions based on their employees’ marital statuses. Federal law unfortunately does not include marital status as one of its protected classes. But this is not to say that you cannot pursue legal action if you have been made the victim of such discrimination. This just means that you may have to make a greater effort to prove that your employer mistreated you. If successful, it may be possible for the New Jersey court to grant you any or all of the following remedies:

• You may be reinstated in your job position, if your matter involved being unfairly terminated.
• You may receive back pay or front pay, if your matter involved being unfairly passed on a promotion.
• You may receive reasonable compensation for your emotional distress damages, if your matter involved being harassed.
• You may receive reasonable compensation for your attorney fees, court fees, and other legal fees incurred from the lawsuit.
• Your employer may be ordered to pay punitive damages to deter such participation in discriminatory behavior in the future.

There may be many benefits in pursuing legal action against your negligent employer, so long as it is first carefully considered. So please seek the assistance of one of the skilled New Jersey employment lawyers from The Vigilante Law Firm, P.C. We look forward to having a conversation with you.