A sea change is coming in challenging discriminatory treatment. From July 2016 through June 2017, almost 2,000 defamation, inverse condemnation, Conscientious Employee Protection Act (CEPA), and Law Against Discrimination (LAD) cases were filed in New Jersey state court. See Administrative Office of the Courts – Court Management Statistics, New Jersey Judiciary Civil Statistics July 2016 – June 2017. Of those, 806 settled. This means that about 45 percent of employment-related discrimination complaints were resolved without a court’s liability determination. As a result, we’ll never know how many of those defendants committed no unlawful act but nevertheless hedged their bets. Just eight months into the next term, 1,193 of these cases already have been filed. As the State moves to understand a newly mobilized political climate, so too must employers adapt to this changed world of “Me Too” and “Time’s Up.” Employers wonder, then, what can they add to their internal management systems to better protect themselves against frivolous claims?

While an attorney’s role in employment law remains important, employers should consider a pre-emptive tool for warding off meritless claims. In New Jersey, an intentional employment discrimination plaintiff will survive past summary judgment if he shows that the employer’s adverse employment action was more likely motivated by the employer’s alleged animus than the employer’s articulated, legitimate reason. Baker v. Nat’l State Bank, 312 N.J. Super. 268, 284 (App. Div. 1998) (citing McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. Green, 411 U.S. 792, 802 (1973)). If an employer used community-trusted, self-validating, consistent metrics to measure employee performance, courts might consider these indicators to form a complete defense. As such, employers would be able to obtain summary judgment and avoid settlement costs. The innovations of “blockchain” technology could be that pre-emptive tool.

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