Let's imagine you're the general counsel of a distribution center near the Georgia coast. Your human resources director shares with you that one of the company's employees, Sally, has made five or six costly mistakes in the past few weeks that have resulted in significant order delays.

Sally's supervisor started documenting her performance and reprimanding her for her mistakes, but all the supervisor received in return was more problems and a bad attitude from Sally. The supervisor is frustrated with the situation and wants to terminate Sally. Before you can look into it further, Sally emails human resources a complaint alleging that her supervisor was creating a hostile environment and that she believes her supervisor wants to fire her because of her known disability. Sally now falls into a protected class under state and federal anti-discrimination laws such as Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.