Employment Lawyer Jacksonville Florida

Serving Duval County, St Johns County & Surrounding Areas

Are you looking for a Duval County, St Johns County or Jacksonville Employment Lawyer? Perhaps one of the most difficult times in a person’s life is when their employment is either threatened, or taken away. Many of us do not realize just how fragile the employment relationship is in the state of Florida, and just how few rights an employee has in the sunshine state. The reasons for this are many, but rather than debate whether this shortage of protections are due to who we vote into state office, or how a judge or administrative board goes about the business of making decisions or interpreting laws that are on the books, it is simply more critical for employees to know just what rights they have, regardless of how few or many, strong or weak, such rights are. We are proud to be among the top law firms in Jacksonville Florida.

General Rule of the Employment Relationship

The general rule in Florida is that an employee can be demoted or worse, terminated, for a good reason, bad reason or no reason at all. What’s even more misunderstood is that an employer need not give the employee notice of a job performance deficiency prior to terminating that employee.

Many people are under the misguided belief that there is a system of warnings that must be followed before any severe action such as demotion or termination takes place. This is not the rule in Florida.

There are, however, exceptions to the general rule. These exceptions are as follows:

1. An employer is prohibited from discriminating against an employee (but not all discrimination is illegal);

2. An employer is prohibited from retaliating against an employee (but not all retaliation is illegal); and finally

3. If a valid enforceable contract exists, than the employer and employee are bound by the terms of that contract. It is rare that such a contract is made between an employer and employee that is beneficial to the employee.

Prohibition of Discrimination in the Workplace:

The Civil Rights Act of 1964, as amended, makes illegal discrimination in the employment setting on the basis of race, religion, sex and nationality. Since the enactment of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Congress has also added age and disability to that list as well by passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act, as amended, and the Age Discrimination in Employment Act, as amended. Added to that by the Florida legislature are the classifications of HIV status and marital status through the Florida Civil Rights Act, thus making the following classifications “protected” in the state of Florida:

• Age

• Race

• Sex (or gender)

• Religion

• Nationality

• Disability

• HIV or

• Marital status

The discrimination must be because of the employee’s membership in one of these classifications. In other words, if an employee discriminates or treats one employee different than another on the basis of, for example, that one employee is a vegetarian and the other is not, or one employee is a Jaguar fan and the other is a Dolphins fan, that is not illegal discrimination. The difference in treatment MUST be because of the membership in one of the listed protected classifications.

Make sure to get in touch if you need an employment lawyer Jacksonville Florida, Duval County or St Johns County.