Employment Discrimination Complaint

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF UTAH INFORMATION FOR FILING AN EMPLOYMENT DISCRIMINATION COMPLAINT Office of the Clerk of Court April 2014 American LegalNet, Inc. www.FormsWorkFlow.com INTRODUCTION This information packet is designed to help you file an employment discrimination lawsuit in federal court without the help of a trained and licensed attorney. When you represent yourself in a lawsuit you are known as a pro se litigant, or a person who is proceeding pro se. In order to start a lawsuit based on a claim of employment discrimination, you must prepare and file with the court what is known as a complaint. This packet of instructions is designed to help you prepare an employment discrimination complaint under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. For information on how to actually file the complaint with the court after you have prepared it and how to proceed in your lawsuit, you should obtain and read the Pro Se Litigant Guide, which is available in the clerk's office of the U.S. District Court for the District of Utah, located in room 1.100 of the United States Courthouse, 351 South West Temple, Salt Lake City, Utah, 84101. A sample complaint form is included in this packet to help you to prepare your complaint. Your complaint must be typewritten or legibly handwritten. All questions must be answered clearly in the correct space on the form. If you need extra space to answer a question, you may use additional pages of 8.5" x 11" size paper. The additional page(s) must be legible and must indicate which question you are answering. If you are suing more than one person, you should state clearly which defendant you accuse of each act. PROCEDURES TO FOLLOW BEFORE THE COMPLAINT IS FILED Before discussing how to actually prepare a complaint, there is some important information you must know about employment discrimination cases. Prior to filing an employment discrimination complaint in federal court, the plaintiff is required to follow specific administrative procedures. Note: This information packet does not provide a complete statement of the law on the administrative procedures to follow before filing an employment discrimination complaint in federal court. The procedures are complicated and it is your responsibility to make sure that all procedures are followed correctly and within the applicable time limit. 1 American LegalNet, Inc. www.FormsWorkFlow.com If you wish to file an employment discrimination case in this court, you first must file your charges with the Anti-Discrimination Division of the Utah State Industrial Commission (UADD). In most cases, the UADD will review your charges and, barring complications, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) will issue you a Notice of Right to Sue indicating that (i) the administrative process has been completed, and (ii) no further action will be taken on behalf of the EEOC. Once this notice is issued, you have a limited time period within which to file your lawsuit; failure to file a complaint in that time period will result in having your cause of action dismissed by this court. A Notice of Right to Sue is not issued where the charges allege employment discrimination based on age. However, not having such a notice will not prevent you from filing an employment discrimination complaint based on age. The Notice of Right to Sue will indicate that you, as the litigant, have the right to request the court to appoint an attorney to represent you if, for financial reasons, you are unable to retain your own attorney. You should bear in mind that in this court, a request for appointment of an attorney will be considered only after a complaint has been filed and is pending before the court, and that the court does not have to grant your request. PREPARING THE COMPLAINT 1. To assist a party appearing pro se in filing an employment discrimination complaint, the office of the clerk has prepared a complaint form. A copy of that form is attached to this information packet. The instructions in this section correspond by name to the sections in the sample complaint form. 2.. If you need more space than the sample complaint form provides to record details, you should use additional sheets the same size as the complaint. You may attach to your complaint copies of documents that, in judgment, support your claims. A good example of such an exhibit in employment discrimination cases is a copy of the Notice of Right to Sue. These attachments are called exhibits. It is important that you not attach exhibits that do not specifically support or strengthen your case. Generally such exhibits will not help your case, and they will add to the time it takes the judge to review your complaint. A. Caption and Heading: Before your case can be filed with the clerk's 2 American LegalNet, Inc. www.FormsWorkFlow.com office, the first page of your complaint must have your name, address and telephone number as part of the heading. This is referred to as the case caption and heading. The case caption also must indicate the Division of the District of Utah in which the case originates. Determining this is relatively easy. Northern Division: If the defendant(s) reside in, or if the action on which the lawsuit is based occurred in one of the following counties, it is a Northern Division case: Box Elder, Cache, Rich, Weber, Davis, or Morgan. Central Division: If the defendant(s) reside in, or if the action occurred in one of the following counties, it is a Central Division case: Beaver, Carbon, Daggett, Duchesne, Emery, Garfield, Grand, Iron, Juab, Kane, Millard, Piute, Salt Lake, San Juan, Sanpete, Sevier, Summit, Tooele, Uintah, Utah, Wasatch, Washington, or Wayne. B. Jurisdiction: In this section, you inform the court by what authority the case should be heard in federal court rather than state court or some other forum. In the attached complaint, the jurisdiction section has been completed for you. The jurisdiction of this court to hear these actions is based upon 42 U.S.C. § 2000-5(f)(3) and, when the discrimination is based on age, 29 U.S.C. 626(c)(1). U.S.C. stands for "United States Code," which is a collection of all the federal laws in the country. C. Parties: Next, you name the parties. As the person initiating the lawsuit, you are the plaintiff and must identify yourself as such. For each defendant named in your complaint, you should list their current address and a description of his or her employment. In addition, you