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Full-Text Articles in Law
Evidentiary Inequality, Sandra F. Sperino
Evidentiary Inequality, Sandra F. Sperino
Faculty Publications
Federal employment discrimination law is rife with evidentiary inequality. Courts allow employers to draw from a broad palette of evidence to defend against discrimination claims, while highly restricting the facts from which plaintiffs can prove their claims. This Article draws from hundreds of cases to show how judges favor the employer's evidence and disfavor the plaintiff's evidence across multiple dimensions, such as time, witnesses, documents, relevance, and reliability. Judges have created a host of named doctrines that severely restrict the evidence plaintiffs are allowed to use to prove their discrimination claims. At the same time, a host of unnamed, and …
Co-Worker Evidence In Court, Sandra F. Sperino
Co-Worker Evidence In Court, Sandra F. Sperino
Faculty Publications
This symposium explores ways to empower workers. Many employment laws rely on workers filing private rights of action to enforce the underlying substantive law. Unfortunately, when workers file these claims in court, courts often do not allow them to rely on evidence from their co-workers. While courts regularly allow employers to submit co-worker evidence of a plaintiff's poor performance or lack of qualifications, they often diminish or exclude a plaintiff's co-worker evidence that the plaintiff performed well or possessed desired qualifications. This Article identifies and explores this evidentiary inequality. It argues that efforts to empower workers must include the power …