In today’s workplace, discrimination doesn’t only happen in person. With so much business being conducted via email, group texts, and Slack, modern workplace discrimination often happens electronically. Digital communications have become some of the strongest evidence you can use to prove workplace discrimination. But to be admissible and used to support a claim, digital evidence in workplace discrimination cases must be handled properly.

Key Takeaways

• Employees can use digital evidence to establish a pattern of conduct in cases of workplace discrimination or harassment.
• Employees who believe they may need digital evidence to prove a case of workplace discrimination or harassment should take lawful and legitimate steps to preserve it.
• An employment attorney can evaluate your situation and guide you on how to preserve digital communications for use in your workplace discrimination case.

Why Digital Communications Matter in Discrimination Cases

State and federal laws prohibit workplace discrimination and hold employers accountable for maintaining a workplace environment that is free from discrimination and harassment. Nonetheless, proving unlawful workplace discrimination or harassment can be challenging, and employers rarely admit it outright. Cases of workplace discrimination are often proved by establishing a pattern of conduct, often inferred from comments and timing. Unlike “he said/she said” disputes, text messages, emails, and workplace chats create a timestamped, written record and digital evidence in workplace discrimination cases that can be hard for employers to dispute.

Using Messages to Prove Discrimination

Emails, text messages, and workplace chats can be a rich source of evidence in your workplace discrimination claim. While employers are unlikely to admit unlawful discrimination or harassment, digital evidence in workplace discrimination cases can be used to:

• Establish discriminatory remarks about a person’s age, race, sex, pregnancy, disability, or national origin.
• Contradict an employer’s stated reason for termination or discipline.
• Show repeated exclusion, unequal treatment, or a hostile pattern of conduct over time.
• Prove retaliation, such as messages sent after an employee made a complaint.
• Establish a timeline.
• Corroborate what witnesses observed.

This evidence can be highly persuasive in a claim for workplace discrimination or harassment.

How Digital Communications Can Show a Pattern of Discrimination

Employers can easily explain away a single message or comment as a joke or a one-off occurrence. Although not unheard of, a single message is rarely enough to prove workplace discrimination or harassment. More often, a series of messages is introduced to establish a pattern of discrimination. These digital communications may require additional context, such as an employee’s performance history, evidence of how other employees were treated, or HR complaints.

How to Legally Preserve Evidence

Employees who believe they might later need evidence to prove discrimination or harassment should take immediate steps to preserve digital evidence:

Emails and Messages

In some cases, employees can take screenshots of emails or messages. However, many employers have workplace policies that prohibit the forwarding of an email to a personal account. Employees can make a list of relevant emails, including the date and sender, and their attorney can later request the emails through the discovery process. Employees should also save or keep a record of voicemails, calendar invites, and chat messages, along with a timeline of incidents as they occur. An employee should not access devices, accounts, or files they are not authorized to use.

Voicemail and Phone Conversations

Connecticut law requires the consent of all parties to a phone conversation before it can lawfully be recorded.

Using Digital Evidence in Your Connecticut Workplace Discrimination Case

While digital evidence in workplace discrimination cases may be readily available and can be highly probative, they must meet certain legal standards to be admissible in court. Specifically, they must be:

Relevant

To be admissible, the communications must be relevant to the matter at issue. In cases of workplace discrimination or harassment, messages that reference an employee’s complaint or use inappropriate language are relevant.

Authentic

The party presenting the evidence must show that the communication is what they claim it to be. An employee must be able to show the account from which an email originated. Witness testimony may be needed to establish the sender’s contact information. Contextual evidence, like nicknames, shared facts, or references to other communications, can help establish the sender’s identity.

Unaltered and Complete

Courts generally require that emails, text messages, and other digital evidence in workplace discrimination cases be presented in their complete form, without deletions or alterations. Screenshots should show the entire exchange as well as dates and contact names.

How a Connecticut Discrimination Attorney Can Help

If you are experiencing workplace discrimination or harassment, the experienced employment discrimination and harassment attorneys at Madsen, Prestley & Parenteau, LLC, can help. During your free and confidential appointment, we can evaluate your situation and provide legal guidance to help you preserve the evidence that could support your case.

To learn how the employment discrimination and harassment attorneys at Madsen, Prestley & Parenteau, LLC, can assist you, contact us online or call 860-246-2466 to schedule a confidential consultation at our Hartford or New London office.