Could I apply for a job at Hooters with the intent of suing for a settlement when they don&#39;t hire me? The highest ranked answer to a previous question states that BFOQ exceptions (probably) would not be a sufficient argument for allowing Hooters to discriminate against a protected group. In fact the same answer points out that hooters has settled out of court numerous times when sued for discriminatory hiring practices. Let's imagine a hypothetical situation where I decided that Hooter's settlement money would make me rich and so I conspired to set up a situation where I could sue so I could get a settlement. So, despite already having a good, higher paying, job I go and interview at Hooters tomorrow. I meet every qualification to work in the service industry, and did while perusing my degree. I would reasonable be perfectly qualified to work at a job like hooters, except that I am a male and thus wouldn't be someone that a company that is dependent on exploiting female sexuality would likely want to hire. Let's say I had already decided that on the unlikely situation I actually was offered the position I would decline it, since I like my current employment (and income) better then what I could get from Hooters. I would essentially would be applying for a job only to tempt them into discriminating against me so I could sue, with no real intent or desire to have the job. For now presume there was some way I could prove that my lack of a job offer was due to my not being an attractive female. Would I be able to claim discrimination and pressure Hooters into a settlement in this sort of situation? Or would the fact that I was not interested in the job and the entire interview was purely an attempt to get a large settlement invalidate, or weaken, any claim I may have? I'm looking for the US perspective here. Also, in case it's not obviously I'm not seriously planning to go interviewing at Hooters any time soon, I'm just curious what would happen if someone tried it.
If Hooters could prove that you never intended to accept the job, that would establish that you did not suffer any damages. You might also be charged with having abused the process of the court, and perhaps with perjury if you had said under oath that you did intend to take the job. If you already had a better-paying job, that would be evidence casting doubt on your intention to accept the Hooters job. Also, if you had a better-paying job and kept it, it would be hard to establish that you were financially damaged by refusal to hire you at Hooters, even if the Judge and jury believed that you really wanted the job for some reason. Thus any settlement is not likely to be large. If you admitted at the start of the case that you never intended to take the job, I suspect that the case would be summarily dismissed, and you might well be required to pay Hooters lawyers fees and other costs, and perhaps fined as well.
Certainly, "Tortious interference" comes to mind. While it's a difficult one to prove, there are typically 6 elements: The existence of a contractual relationship or beneficial business relationship between two parties (possible problem here). Knowledge of that relationship by a third party. Intent of the third party to induce a party to the relationship to breach the relationship. (or refuse to enter one). Lack of any privilege on the part of the third party to induce such a breach. (no right to do so via some other aspect of law). The contractual relationship is breached. (the normally-accessible-to-anyone transaction is prevented). Damage to the party against whom the breach occurs The only real "stretch" here is that Tortious Interference is written for cases where you already have an existing business relationship or contract in place. You're talking about a situation where a vendor normally proffers its service to any member of the public, and you'd argue there's an implied contract that they do business with any comer. In real estate particularly, it gets a lot more complicated because of Fair Housing laws. The apartment could get in big trouble being caught refusing to do business with someone, if the reason for the refusal was sourced in something related to race, creed, religion, sexual orientation and a bunch of other no-no's. Even if that's not your motive, if they (plural: victim and attorney) can convince a judge or jury that it is your motive, you and the apartment could owe them a lot of money. Fun fact: conspiracy to commit a Federal crime is a felony, even if the crime isn't. Regardless... I think if you are paying the vendor to snub the customer, courts would find that to be a perverse and unjustifiable behavior, and would see harm in that, especially if it was part of a pattern of behavior that constituted harassment. They would tend to assume the worst motives unless you could show other motives. I suspect they could even get a restraining order blocking you from interfering in their business relationships anywhere. You would also be subject to discovery, and would be compelled to disclose anywhere else you interfered, and pretty much anything they want to ask you. You can't refuse to answer ... unless ... your answer would incriminate you of a crime. But that's the kiss of death in a civil trial, because the jury hears that, and infers you are a crook. Game over lol.
US federal law prohibits gender discrimination in some spheres, including employment (42 USC 2000e-2), but it does not prohibit it in public accommodations (42 USC 2000a): (a) Equal access All persons shall be entitled to the full and equal enjoyment of the goods, services, facilities, privileges, advantages, and accommodations of any place of public accommodation, as defined in this section, without discrimination or segregation on the ground of race, color, religion, or national origin. To address my earlier comment, discounts based on age or gender are not covered by this law, but discounts based on race or religion would be. The Virginia Human Rights Act is essentially a statement of policy regarding the enforcement of antidiscrimination prohibitions created by other laws. There does not seem to be any other Virginia law creating a prohibition on gender discrimination in public accommodations.
It probably depends on whether the employer is covered by a relevant non-discrimination statute. Most employers in the United States are covered, but some are small enough to be exempt. Federal law exempts employers with under 15 employees and religious organizations. There might also be a relevant state law. It also would depend upon whether the EEOC or a court found that "be blessed" was a compelled religious statement in violation of a worker's beliefs, and whether allowing the worker not to say it would be a "reasonable accommodation." This is a strong case, and I suspect that the worker would win on both counts but it isn't a completely open and shut case. There is arguably a secular meaning to the word "blessed" and a court could conceivably find that there is a legitimate and indispensible business purpose for insisting that every single person in the worker's position need to make this statement, although I doubt that a court would do so.
Short answer: yes and no. I've never heard of this term before, but what you are calling "mobbing" does, in fact, sound like the dictionary definition of type 2 sexual harassment, at least if said "mobbing" is done with a sexual bent. http://www.legalmatch.com/law-library/article/types-of-sexual-harassment.html This type of sexual harassment occurs when a co-worker or supervisor in the workplace makes sexual advances or comments to an employee that, while not affecting promotions or the future of the employee's job, makes the working environment of the employee offensive and hostile. In general, the comments tend to affect the employee's ability to do her job. Note that this is completely different from "type 1" or "quid pro quo" style sexual harassment, which is the kind that everyone is aware of; however, this version occurs quite often as well and is pretty well codified. Again, that's straight-up sexual harassment, though; there are other illegal forms of harassment that deal with singling out someone because of their race or creed, for example. That being said, I am no lawyer but the simple act of ganging up on a worker is not, I don't think, in and of itself illegal. If you're being ganged up on because you're black, or because you were a whistle-blower, that's one thing, but if people are ganging up on you simply because they don't like you, well, I'm sorry but you probably don't have any recourse (please note that I am not a lawyer and that this is not a site to receive legal advice from). More info on "mobbing": http://www.manageangerdaily.com/2010/03/how-to-combat-workplace-mobbing/
The words of the prohibition in 24 CFR 100.60(a)are that It shall be unlawful for a person to refuse to sell or rent a dwelling to a person who has made a bona fide offer, because of race, color, religion, sex, familial status, or national origin or to refuse to negotiate with a person for the sale or rental of a dwelling because of race, color, religion, sex, familial status, or national origin, or to discriminate against any person in the sale or rental of a dwelling because of handicap. It would be discriminatory for the landlord to refuse to rent to a person because they are or are not of some sex. Based just on the plain language of the prohibition, the author of the app or operator of a website is not renting / refusing to rent. Nevertheless, Roommate.com was sued, and found not liable, though not on the grounds that they hadn't discriminated Fair Housing Councils v. Rommate.com addressed an attempt to punish roommate.com on discriminatory grounds. The court states that &quot;The pivotal question is whether the FHA applies to roommates&quot;. The court's reasoning is a clear application of the notion of &quot;Congressional intent&quot;. As they say, There’s no indication that Congress intended to interfere with personal relationships inside the home. Congress wanted to address the problem of landlords discriminating in the sale and rental of housing, which deprived protected classes of housing opportunities. But a business transaction between a tenant and landlord is quite different from an arrangement between two people sharing the same living space. We seriously doubt Congress meant the FHA to apply to the latter. Consider, for example, the FHA’s prohibition against sex discrimination. Could Congress, in the 1960s, really have meant that women must accept men as roommates? Telling women they may not lawfully exclude men from the list of acceptable roommates would be controversial today; it would have been scandalous in the 1960s The court continued on other grounds, observing that given that the FHA is a remedial statute that we construe broadly... we turn to constitutional concerns, which provide strong countervailing considerations That is, even if you ignore congressional intent, there is a constitutional reason why FHA cannot apply to roommate choice. SCOTUS in Bd. of Dirs. of Rotary Int’l v. Rotary Club of Duarte, 481 U.S. 537 stated that &quot;the freedom to enter into and carry on certain intimate or private relationships is a fundamental element of liberty protected by the Bill of Rights&quot;, and &quot;Courts have extended the right of intimate association to marriage, child bearing, child rearing and cohabitation with relatives&quot;. Then in order to &quot;determine whether a particular relationship is protected by the right to intimate association we look to 'size, purpose, selectivity, and whether others are excluded from critical aspects of the relationship'&quot;. After extensive analysis centered around the point that &quot;Government regulation of an individual’s ability to pick a roommate thus intrudes into the home, which 'is entitled to special protection as the center of the private lives of our people'&quot;, the court &quot;adopt[s] the narrower construction that excludes roommate selection from the reach of the FHA&quot;. TL;DR the FHA doesn't apply to roommates and it's legal to select one's roommates based on their race, color, religion, sex, sexuality, etc...
Generally speaking, no: Sex is a protected characteristic and discriminating between applicants based on a protected characteristic is prohibited so an employer is not free to hire only men or women simply because they would prefer to. But there are exceptions, like “occupational requirements” (which is probably what your athlete example is getting at). And, looking at the example you provided, it might - with a caveat - fall under an exception called “positive action”, as provided in section 158 and 159 of the Equality Act. However, the conditions under which this is allowed are tightly regulated and it would come down to the specifics (e.g. whether the number of women in that activity is “disproportionately low”). The caveat is that the Equality Act specifies that the protected characteristic (i.e. sex/gender in this case) can only be taken into account when choosing between two equally qualified candidates. I don't know whether this was ever tested in court but this would probably preclude advertising a position as “women-only” (as opposed to soliciting applications from both men and women and then selecting a woman with the explicit goal of increasing the number of women in your department). The Government Equalities Office guide on positive action also contains language strongly suggesting that limiting the search to women from the get go might not pass muster: Positive action can be used at any time in the recruitment or promotion process. […] However, it is expected that, in the vast majority of cases, any use of positive action as a ‘tie-breaker’ between candidates who are of equal merit for a particular post will be at the end of the recruitment process, at the actual point of appointment. […] In order to use positive action provisions in a tie-breaker situation, the employer must first establish that the candidates are of equal merit. Note that there is no such “equally qualified” clause in section 158, which deals with everything else than recruitment and promotion. Thus, it is perfectly fine to create a training programme that would be only open to women, if the goal is to increase the proportion of women in an activity where it is disproportionately low (an example provided by the same guide is a development programme “to help female staff compete for management positions”). Incidentally, all this is allowed under EU law (articles 5 and 7 of Directive 2000/78/EC).
must all interaction be through a lawyer after receiving the first letter? Consistent with others' answer, no, you don't need a lawyer. But your question in and of itself is indicative of the steep learning curve you would need to undergo in order to avoid "shooting yourself in the foot", as the saying goes. By this I am not encouraging you to get a lawyer (in fact, here on stackexchange and elsewhere I promote litigation in pro per). Instead, I encourage people to learn about the applicable statutes, procedural laws, how to conduct legal research, and to draft/present their arguments in court. Here are some suggestions regarding your response letter: Avoid sarcastic admissions such as "Right, for sure I am at fault for the employer's [fill_in_the_blanks]". If you ask for a clarification, clearly state that you expect reasonably sufficient detail as well as any and all records that substantiate the alleged damages. Although that won't strictly limit the allegations the employer can make in court proceedings, the attorney's reply might help evidencing the employer's vexatious approach later on. Avoid wording that may be misinterpreted as consciousness of guilt. Be assertive and truthful. Keep in mind the lawyer is gauging (1) how easily he can intimidate you, and (2) whether he can make additional claims to harass you via court proceedings. From now on, all your interactions with the attorney and the employer should be in writing (preferably email, given its reproducibility). When unethical individuals are aware that their position is devoid of merit, they are very tempted to indulge in false accusations (of threat, for example). Thus, communications in writing constitute objectively verifiable proof of who is acting unlawfully. Even if the attorney premises on your contract (or employment agreement/manual, or company's guidelines) the alleged damages, the clauses at issue might be illegal and therefore void. For instance, from 2007-2012 my former employer (an Indian IT intermediary) prohibited me --via contract-- to disclose my salary. The contract contained the typical lawyered babbling, but that doesn't mean that all of it was legal. In 2013 I realized that the prohibition violated Michigan law, and he had no option but to strike the entire clause. That being said, I didn't sue him for that, but for other more important matters which are currently pending review in the U.S. Supreme Court. Absent any further context in your inquiry, it is hard to make additional suggestions on how to proceed.