Ask HN: Can/should I sue for discrimination? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Can/should I sue for discrimination?

I had a job interview last week for a software engineer position. The interviewer lasted a little over an hour and he was really interested in me, but towards the end he asked me if I was married and what my age was (I said I was single and 32). I didn't think anything of it at the time, but him asking my age made me uncomfortable. At the end he said I would move to the next step which would be a technical challenge and that he would send it over. But then two days later he emailed me saying that they wouldn't move forward, stating that "they couldn't match my ambitions". I thought it was odd because he was so interested, it didn't seem honest. I think he didn't go forward because of my age (and possibly marital status)

Can/should I sue for this? and if so how would I go about it?

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Definitely No.

Suing companies is much harder than Internet comment sections imply. You would need an airtight case for any reasonable lawyer to proceed with such a case. From your post, you don’t appear to have any smoking gun evidence that they declined you due to marital status. You can’t win a lawsuit based on a hunch.

Contrary to popular belief, it’s not necessarily illegal to ask candidates about their marital status in the US. It would, however, be illegal if they used the answer to this question in a way that influenced their hiring decision. Frankly, it’s more likely that they were playing the “getting to know you” game with some poorly-advised small talk.

Before you consider suing, ask yourself what you expect to achieve: If you want an easy payout, remember that your lawyers will take a significant amount of anything you receive. If you lose, are you prepared to pay the legal fees yourself? Your lawyers won’t work for free and suing a company is an easy way to accumulate huge legal fees.

Note that you don't need to "win a lawsuit" as 95% of all cases settle out of court. The company will likely settle to avoid the expense of a trial. They may even have insurance that will pay out for such circumstances

Also consider this: if you do sue, any future potential employer who googles your name will see the lawsuit. This will dramatically reduce your chances of getting future jobs.

As a former hiring manager, I can say I have never taken the time to google a candidate for lawsuits. If you settle out of court before going to trial, there is usually a nondisclosure and no public record.

If you settle, the complaint and other docket records are public record. There are sites that now publish lots of court records, so just googling a name may bring up lawsuits filed by that person. You don’t need to google specifically for court records.

My point was about settling before filing in court. The sequence is this:

  1. Have your lawyer send a demand letter
  2. Request a case management conference/arbitration
  3. Reach settlement
  4. File in court (filing now public)
  5. Reach settlement (settlement private)
  6. Court judgment (judgment public)

The goal is to stop at step 3 where it is not yet public. The company will not want the filing public because of bad publicity. If it gets this far, they would rather stop at step 5 than 6.

Yes you can and should sue. Contact a lawyer and you can get a free consultation. Many will take your case for free if it is strong enough. Here are two data points:

When I worked for Kaplan test prep we "auditioned" teachers, asking them to teach any topic for 5 min. One candidate was great, but had a thick accent. One of the managers made the mistake of telling him we would not proceed because of the accent. He sued because of discrimination based on national origin and Kaplan settled for about $100k.

When I left my old company as director of engineering I recommended one of the team as my replacement but the CEO declined, saying there were "communication issues" (the team member is deaf). I told him what the CEO had said and recommended he sue. They also settled out of court.

That may be legally permissible, but is it morally acceptable? It just sounds like thinly veiled blackmail to me.

If you have a thick accent, then that can obviously cause some problems, and likewise for being deaf.

The only thing this will result in is that companies become more ambiguous; instead of telling people they were rejected because of their accent, they'll just not get back to the duds after interviewing them.

Note that Arnold Schwarzenegger has a thick accent. It has not stopped him from succeeding in movies and politics. And a deaf person can work with reasonable accommodation (face him when speaking so he can read lips, use email/chat whenever possible. Note that these are good suggestions for the hearing as well).

Thick accent, but not hard to understand, and the fact remains those are not ideal for a public-facing role. I mean, German, sure, but "Indian tech support representative" just isn't a good look no matter how you slice it.

Deaf people could work with some accommodation, but why bother? For leadership roles, "using email/chat whenever possible" is clearly not ideal. You'll get a worse result and/or pay more for an equally good result.

The proper solution to labour law isn't to favorize the concerned groups, but to come up with more opaque hiring procedures so as to render them toothless.

I'm feeding the troll here...

German, sure, but "Indian tech support representative" just isn't a good look no matter how you slice it.

That is discriminatory to suggest that one country's accent is more acceptable than another's.

Deaf people could work with some accommodation, but why bother?

Because in the US that is literally what the Americans with Disabilities Act requires: https://www.dol.gov/odep/topics/Accommodations.htm

>That is discriminatory to suggest that one country's accent is more acceptable than another's.

In the abstract sense, maybe. But it still isn't a good look. If I call the support and hear someone from India, my first impression is that they outsourced it to the lowest bidder. If I call the support and hear someone from Germany, my first impression is that it's a German living in America for whatever reason.

You may not like it, but that's how it is. You can either make your customers happy or be politically correct. "Indian tech support" has the reputation it does for a reason, and it's foolish to tarnish your brand with it.

>Because in the US that is literally what the Americans with Disabilities Act requires: https://www.dol.gov/odep/topics/Accommodations.htm

Right, but what's the business case here? If it's only "the potential fines exceed the potential gain," it seems like there are much easier ways to go at it. For example, screening out disabled people early in the hiring process.

Yeah, this is true. This is why I added "should I?" to the question, because I'm not sure if it's right.

On the one hand, I really hate the fact that I'm potentially being passed on roles because of things that have nothing to do with the job because of things I can't control (like age or nationality/ethnicity).

On the other hand, it does feel like blackmail basically, and little over the top. It's cancel culture-y. Would doing this help anyone (besides me) or just cause someone who was just a regular person that was just trying to be practical enormous grief?

I'm conflicted about it for sure, that's why I'm asking on HN for input. In an ideal world traits you can't control like accent, gender, race, nationality, etc wouldn't disqualify you, but they are a business and they're concern is whether the company will thrive. And the fact is some of this stuff matters, like the accent, or being deaf. What if your nationality isn't friends with the country the company is based in? there's a lot of espionage these days. Or even marital status/kids: having a family takes away from work and some companies will over very competitive rates but want extreme dedication, and that would be a disqualifier.

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