Announcer: The following segment is sponsored by Harding Mazzotti.
Interviewer: Governor Hochul recently signed a senate bill into law that extends the statute of limitations for administrative discrimination claims brought under the New York State Human Rights Law from one year to three years. So, here to discuss what this means for New York State Employment Law is managing partner Paul Harding from Harding Mazzotti. Thanks for being here with us. So, what has changed under the new law?
Paul: So, statute of limitations is the amount of time that you have to bring a claim from the date that there is an offense to the date you can bring a claim. In a motor vehicle, claim is usually three years. This administrative proceeding with the Division of Human Rights was one year and it’s inconsistent with everything else. So they just wanted to make it so it was just like the other ones. But why would you need more than a year? Number one, you may not know what’s happening to you. You may not be comfortable to maintain a claim. It’s your job. You don’t want to cause, you know, a lot of trouble and lose your job. So, giving more people the option when they’re either sexually harassed or discriminated against.
Interviewer: Yeah, I was gonna say, what types of discrimination claims are we talking about here?
Paul: Yeah, it covers the entire gamut. It’s age, race, color, creed, immigration status, you know, unsafe workplace. So just about everything, you’ll now, through the administrative proceeding, have three years to bring the claim, as opposed to what was fairly unfair one year.
Interviewer: So when does this take effect?
Paul: Yeah. So it’s not retroactive. So if something happened to you and the time has run out, but February 15th of this year, if it happens on that date or before, you have three years prior to that, you’re still just limited to the one year for the administrative proceeding.
Interviewer: Okay. Got it. Makes sense. Thank you for explaining it all.
Paul: Yeah, you know, absolutely happy to be here.
Interviewer: All righty. Well, for more info covered in our weekly, What Are Your Rights Segments, or to send us a story idea, just head to our website, cbs6albany.com.
