Employees taking their employers to court is not a new concept. This has been happening for a long time in cases where a worker believes their manager or the business owner has done something wrong and wants the legal system to help them rectify it. However, the leading reasons for taking an employer to court can change from year to year. In 2025, employees are seeking legal help for these reasons:
Wrongful Termination
Lawyers regularly brush up on wrongful termination defense for employers due to the common nature of this claim. Wrongful termination refers to an employer firing an employee for an illegal reason, such as discrimination and retaliation for whistleblowing.
It can also occur if an employer fails to follow proper procedures, such as investigating a problem or providing a worker with an opportunity to respond to the allegations against them. When an employer takes such action, their employees can seek legal help and file a wrongful termination lawsuit.
Discrimination and Harassment
Discrimination and harassment, particularly surrounding race, sex, religion, gender identity, and disability, are a leading cause of employee lawsuits in 2025. According to recent data released by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), charges of discrimination continue to increase, with 88,531 received in 2024 alone.
The EEOC also handled over half a million phone calls through its agency contact center and 90,000 emails. Discrimination and harassment in the workplace can exist in many forms, such as an employer failing to accommodate disabilities or treating female workers differently from male workers.
Wage and Entitlement Disputes
Building financial stability can be challenging when you don’t earn enough to cover your everyday living costs. It can also be frustrating when you know your employer isn’t following the law for pay transparency, pay equity, or worker classification.
Many states now require employers to disclose salary ranges in job postings and employees to provide their pay range information. An employee may decide to seek legal action if their employer hasn’t complied with their state’s pay transparency laws.
Seeking legal assistance for pay equity is also a common practice. This is when an employee believes their employer is paying them less than someone else in the same role with the same experience. Even worker misclassification has resulted in legal action in 2025. This is when a business owner treats someone as an independent contractor, even though they are an employee.
Return-to-Office and Flexible Work Disputes
In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, employers allowed their employees to work from home to create a safer work environment. For months and even years, employees adapted to this work structure.
However, over time, employers began changing their work models and pushed more employees back into offices. This created work disputes and, in some cases, even impacted protected groups. There has been a growing trend in lawsuits ever since. For example, one company was made to pay $3.1 million to two former employees with health issues after it rejected their requests to work from home during the pandemic.
Lawsuits between employers and employees aren’t new, but there is a surprising upwards trend in specific causes. Both business owners and their workers should seek legal advice to ensure they can put together the strongest case.
Photo: Sandra Dempsey via Unsplash.
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