Pay Issues Attorney in New Jersey, New Jersey
What is required to win an equal pay lawsuit?
What is required to win an equal pay lawsuit?
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we in New Jersey have a more generous
equal pay statute um than the federal
equal pay statute in terms of both what
the employee has to prove to show a
violation and in terms of the remedies
the employee can get the concept of
equal pay is the notion that everybody
who’s doing the same job or the same
kind of work should get paid at the same
rate for that work and so the earliest
equal pay cases generally arose in the
context of gender discrimination where
women were getting paid less than men
and and today unfortunately empirically
it is still the case that across all
occupations women get paid less than men
do um for doing the same kind of work so
that’s the concept of equal pay uh New
Jersey’s equal pay statute prohibits
that kind of discrimination and
compensation not just based on gender
but based on race based on age religion
disability any of the protected
characteristics that we have under our
anti-discrimination law under federal
law an employee would have to show that
it’s the exact same type of work under
New Jerseys state law it’s just
substantially similar work so it’s a a
much less rigorous standard that’s
easier for employees to meet and then
under New Jersey law in addition to
getting the pay itself in addition to
potentially recovering emotional
distress damages and in addition to
potentially recovering punitive damages
um the court can award up to
um treble damages in addition to the the
wages that the person was denied
um so they could end up with 300% of
their lost wages in addition to
emotional distress damages and punitive
damages
Morristown, NJ employment law attorney Chris Lenzo talks about what’s required to win an equal pay lawsuit.
