If you felt you were put under pressure to resign from your job due to your marital status you may be entitled to claim compensation. This is because your forced resignation may be considered a termination. This referred to as a constructive discharge.
If your employer constructively discharged you the law states that you were sacked which means you have certain rights that employees who willingly resign do not have.
This includes eligibility to unemployment benefits and the right to file a wrongful termination lawsuit against your employer. U.S. federal law prohibits discrimination in the workplace based on marital status, including forcing an employee to resign.
What is Forced Resignation?
If you have been forced to resign or constructively discharged this means that you have resigned involuntarily from your job because of the pressure exerted on you due to your marital status or another protected feature such as gender.
If as an employee you are forced to resign because of your marital status this is in violation of employment legislation which states you cannot be discriminated against due to your marital status.
Sometimes forced resignation occurs because the employer is retaliating against you for some reason so it makes life in the workplace so intolerable that you feel the only option you have is to resign.
Constructive Discharge Claim
If you are in the position that you feel you have been forced to resign because of your marital status and because your employer has made the workplace environment intolerable for you to work in due to your marital status you could be eligible to file a constructive discharge claim.
The term "constructive discharge" is when a worker like yourself has been forced to resign because your employer has created a hostile or intolerable work environment or has applied other forms of pressure which has forced you the employee to resign because of your marital status.
If you wish to be eligible to file a constructive discharge claim you need to have terminated your contract by resigning. When you resign, you must include in your resignation letter that you are quitting the job because your employer has breached the employment contract.
When providing proof that a constructive discharge has occurred you are only required to prove that your employer deliberately created working conditions that were so unbearable that the ordinary employee had no other choice but to resign. The evidence needed to help support a constructive discharge claim is:
- your letter offering employment;
- your employment contract that came with the job;
- the job description;
- any letters and emails that had taken place between you and your employer;
- any emails you can source between your employer’s managers and/or HR;
- witness statements compiled by co-workers.
You must provide evidence that shows you have responded to the breach within an acceptable time period. This will mean producing proof that reveals when the breaches occurred and when you resigned.
Next Steps to Take
As soon as you feel you are experiencing intolerable work conditions which have been created just for you in relation to your marital status you should collect all the evidence that has forced you to resign To win a claim you need to prove that the circumstances you have experienced were repetitive and the company did nothing to improve the situation.
When you are forced to resign and you have the evidence to prove it was due to your marital status, handling a constructive discharge claim on your own is not an easy matter.
Filling out the free evaluation form could help clarify if you have a claim or not.
