Denied a Raise Because of Sex, Forced Out Over Age: NY Law

On September 10, 2026, the EEOC announced that Lely North America, Inc., an agricultural technology company headquartered in Pella, Iowa, agreed to pay $65,000 to a former employee to resolve a discrimination charge.

The agency’s investigation found two violations. Lely failed to provide a wage increase to the former employee on the basis of sex, in violation of Title VII. The same employee was harassed and constructively discharged on the basis of age, in violation of the Age Discrimination in Employment Act.

The $65,000 covers back pay, compensatory damages and attorney’s fees. Lely also agreed to train all of its North American employees, including supervisors, managers and human resources staff, to send compliance reports to the EEOC, and to two years of EEOC monitoring.

This was a conciliation. No lawsuit was filed and no court found Lely liable. The EEOC investigated a charge, and the company resolved it before the matter reached a courtroom.

Catherine Eschbach, the acting EEOC general counsel, said that “[d]iscrimination based on sex and age in the workplace is illegal under federal law.” The acting general counsel added that the EEOC “will aggressively pursue all appropriate avenues of relief for victims of discrimination.”

I represent employees on Long Island. The Lely charge joined two claims that often arrive together: a pay decision made on the basis of sex, then pressure on an older employee until the employee resigns. They are separate claims under separate statutes, and the deadlines differ. New York law is the better vehicle for both.

The raise that went to someone else

A raise withheld because of sex is actionable under two federal statutes and one New York statute. The New York statute is the strongest of them, and it is easier to see why after the federal ones.

Title VII and the Equal Pay Act

Title VII covers employers of 15 or more employees and forbids setting pay or raises because of sex. Under the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, an unlawful practice occurs “each time wages, benefits, or other compensation is paid” under a discriminatory compensation decision. Consequently, each paycheck at the discriminatory rate restarts the 300-day period for filing an EEOC charge (42 U.S.C. § 2000e-5(e)(1), (e)(3)(A)).

The Equal Pay Act requires equal pay for equal work: substantially equal skill, effort and responsibility under similar working conditions. No EEOC charge is required first.

An Equal Pay Act action must be commenced within two years after the cause of action accrued, or within three years for a willful violation (29 U.S.C. § 255(a)). Unpaid wages are doubled as liquidated damages unless the employer shows that it acted in good faith and had reasonable grounds for believing that it was not violating the law (29 U.S.C. § 260).

Labor Law § 194

Since the 2019 amendments, Labor Law § 194(1) prohibits a pay differential for “substantially similar work, when viewed as a composite of skill, effort, and responsibility, and performed under similar working conditions.” The statute protects status within one or more protected classes, which takes it well past sex.

The employer’s defenses are the four the statute lists: a seniority system, a merit system, a system that measures earnings by quantity or quality of production, or “a bona fide factor other than status within one or more protected class or classes, such as education, training, or experience.” That factor must be job-related with respect to the position and consistent with business necessity. “He negotiated harder” is not on the list.

An action under the Labor Law must be commenced within six years (Labor Law § 198(3)). For a willful violation of Labor Law § 194, liquidated damages may be up to 300 percent of the wages found to be due (Labor Law § 198(1-a)).

Labor Law § 194(4)(a) also provides that no employer shall prohibit an employee from “inquiring about, discussing, or disclosing” wages. Consequently, a pay-secrecy rule is itself a violation, and asking a coworker about pay is protected.

The salary history ban and the posted range

Labor Law § 194-a has been in effect since January 2020. An employer shall not rely on the wage or salary history of an applicant in determining whether to offer employment or what to pay. An employer also shall not seek that history from an applicant or current employee as a condition of an interview, an offer, employment or a promotion. A salary anchored to the last job is a violation on its own.

Labor Law § 194-b has been in effect since September 17, 2023, and applies to employers of four or more employees. The employer may not advertise a job, promotion, or transfer opportunity without disclosing the compensation or range of compensation. The posted range is the employer’s own written statement of what the job pays. In a pay case it is the first document I ask for.

Our Long Island wage and hour practice handles the Labor Law § 194 claim; the discrimination claim runs alongside it.

The push-out: age harassment and constructive discharge

The ADEA protects workers 40 and older and covers employers of 20 or more employees. Under Gross v. FBL Financial Services, Inc., 557 U.S. 167 (2009), the plaintiff must prove that age was the “but-for” cause of the adverse action. Proof that age was one factor among several does not meet that standard.

The New York State Human Rights Law is broader. Executive Law § 296 covers every employer of any size, and Executive Law § 296(3-a)(a) protects an individual “eighteen years of age or older.” Since October 2019, under Executive Law § 296(1)(h), harassment is an unlawful discriminatory practice “regardless of whether such harassment would be considered severe or pervasive.”

The question under Executive Law § 296(1)(h) is whether the employee was subjected to inferior terms, conditions or privileges of employment because of age. The employer’s affirmative defense is that the conduct does not rise above what a reasonable victim of discrimination with the same protected characteristic would consider “petty slights or trivial inconveniences.”

Here is what that means in an office. “When are you retiring?” asked once is a petty slight. The same question in every one-on-one meeting, accounts reassigned to an employee half the age, a raise that skips one person, and a write-up for conduct everyone engages in are inferior terms.

If the workplace is in the five boroughs, the New York City Human Rights Law also applies and is read more broadly still: the question is whether the employee was treated less well because of age.

Our hostile work environment page covers the proof in more depth. Our age discrimination page and our warning-signs guide list the patterns worth writing down.

What constructive discharge means

The employee resigned, but the law treats the resignation as a firing: working conditions were so intolerable that a reasonable person in the employee’s position would have felt compelled to resign. Federal courts usually also ask whether the employer created those conditions deliberately.

That is a high bar. In my experience the claim is usually lost before a lawyer is hired, by an employee who walks out without a record. A resignation with no prior complaint, no documents and a cheerful goodbye email reads, in a courtroom, as a voluntary quit.

Timing favors the employee on one point. In Green v. Brennan, 578 U.S. 547 (2016), the Supreme Court held that a constructive-discharge claim accrues, and the limitations period begins to run, when the employee gives notice of resignation. The period does not start when the harassment began.

Our wrongful termination page walks through how a forced resignation is proved.

Retaliation after the complaint

A written complaint that names pay and age is the most useful document in the file. It is also the moment an employer is most likely to make a second mistake. Three statutes protect that complaint, and a practitioner pleads all of them.

Labor Law § 215

Labor Law § 215(1)(a) provides that no employer shall “discharge, threaten, penalize, or in any other manner discriminate or retaliate against any employee” because the employee complained that the employer engaged in conduct the employee “reasonably and in good faith, believes violates any provision of this chapter.” Unequal pay under Labor Law § 194 is a provision of that chapter. The complaint “need not make explicit reference to any section or provision of this chapter.”

Labor Law § 215(2)(a) authorizes “all appropriate relief.” The relief the statute names is an injunction, liquidated damages of not more than $20,000, lost compensation and damages, reinstatement or front pay in lieu of reinstatement, and reasonable attorneys’ fees. Non-economic damages are not listed by name; they are pleaded under “all appropriate relief.” The action must be brought within two years.

Labor Law § 740

Labor Law § 740(2)(a) reaches further. An employer shall not take any retaliatory action against an employee who “discloses, or threatens to disclose to a supervisor or to a public body an activity, policy or practice of the employer that the employee reasonably believes is in violation of law, rule or regulation.” Here, a pay practice that the employee reasonably believes violates Labor Law § 194 or Title VII is such a practice. Labor Law § 740(2)(c) also protects the employee who objects to, or refuses to participate in, the practice.

Labor Law § 740(4)(b) entitles the parties to a jury trial. Labor Law § 740(5) lists the relief: an injunction, reinstatement or front pay in lieu thereof, lost wages, benefits and other remuneration, reasonable costs and attorney’s fees, a civil penalty not to exceed $10,000, and punitive damages if the violation was willful, malicious or wanton.

Labor Law § 740(7) provides that the section does not diminish the employee’s rights under any other law; therefore, the Labor Law § 740 claim is pleaded alongside the others. The action must be commenced within two years after the retaliatory action was taken.

Executive Law § 296(7)

For the age complaint, Executive Law § 296(7) makes it an unlawful discriminatory practice to “retaliate or discriminate against any person because such person has (i) opposed any practices forbidden under this article” or “(ii) filed a complaint, testified, or assisted in any proceeding under this article.” The remedies are those of the Human Rights Law: uncapped compensatory damages, punitive damages against a private employer, and attorney’s fees.

Consequently, the complaint to human resources should be in writing, should name pay and age, and should be kept at home. The date on that document starts the retaliation analysis. Our employer retaliation page covers the proof.

The clocks

Each claim has its own deadline, and the shortest one controls the first decision. This chart runs from the shortest to the longest.

The EEOC process is where the Lely matter started, and an EEOC charge is the only door to a federal Title VII or ADEA lawsuit.

One warning about the Division of Human Rights. Executive Law § 297(9) gives a person a cause of action in court “unless such person had filed a complaint” with the Division. Consequently, filing there alone can cost the employee the right to sue in court on the same facts. Do not file there without advice.

Federal law and New York law, side by side

The deadlines are above. The table compares the federal statutes with New York law on the points that set the value of the case.

Back pay is the gap between what the employee was paid and what the employee should have been paid, from the denied raise forward, plus the wages lost after the forced resignation. Front pay covers the future when reinstatement is unrealistic.

Lely’s $65,000 resolved one worker’s charge in conciliation. A litigated New York case with a documented pay gap and a documented push-out is a different calculation.

A Long Island version, and the evidence that decides it

Picture a Melville office. A woman in her early sixties, twelve years in the job, asks for the raise the two men in her role received and is told the budget is tight. Six months later the retirement jokes start, her accounts move to a 30-year-old, and by spring she gives notice.

That case is decided by documents. These are the ones I ask for.

The pay bands

Start with the Labor Law § 194-b posting for the last hire into her role, the internal salary bands human resources keeps, and the raise memos for the two men. Comparator pay is the whole Labor Law claim.

The salary-history trail

Any application form or offer email that asked what she earned before is evidence of a Labor Law § 194-a violation. It is easy to prove and hard to explain.

The harassment log

The log records dates, words and witnesses. It is written as events happen, and it is kept off the company system. Emailing the log to yourself at work hands the employer a copy and an argument.

The internal complaint

A written complaint to human resources that names age and pay defeats the “we never knew” defense. It also brings Labor Law § 215, Labor Law § 740 and Executive Law § 296(7) into the case, so that whatever the employer does next is measured as retaliation.

The resignation letter

The letter is one factual paragraph. It states that the employee is resigning because of the conduct complained about, on the dates complained about. It does not say “for personal reasons.” That letter is the constructive-discharge claim.

If you are still employed and reading this, you are in the strongest position you will have. Talk to us before you resign.

The first week, in order

1. Do not resign yet. Every step below is easier while you still have access and a paycheck.
2. Write down every age comment and every pay conversation you can date, on your own device.
3. Pull the job postings and any salary bands or offer letters you can lawfully access, and screenshot the Labor Law § 194-b ranges.
4. Put a written complaint to human resources that names age and pay. Keep a copy at home.
5. Calendar 300 days from the last paycheck at the wrong rate. That is the EEOC deadline.
6. Get a lawyer’s read before you answer an exit interview or sign anything with a release in it.
7. If you must leave, resign in writing and state the reasons.

What to bring to the first call

• The job posting or Labor Law § 194-b range for your role, and your last two pay stubs.
• Any email or memo about the raise: who received one, when, and what you were told.
• Your dated log of age-related comments, with the names of anyone who heard them.
• A copy of any complaint you made to human resources, and the response.
• Your resignation letter or notice, if you have already given it, with the date.

Sources

• EEOC, Lely North America, Inc. to Pay $65,000 to Resolve EEOC Age and Sex Discrimination Investigation (Sept. 10, 2026): https://www.eeoc.gov/newsroom/lely-north-america-inc-pay-65000-resolve-eeoc-age-and-sex-discrimination-investigation
• EEOC, Age Discrimination: https://www.eeoc.gov/age-discrimination
• EEOC, Sex-Based Discrimination: https://www.eeoc.gov/sex-based-discrimination
• New York Labor Law § 194: https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/LAB/194
• New York Labor Law § 194-a: https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/LAB/194-A
• New York Labor Law § 194-b: https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/LAB/194-B
• New York Labor Law § 198: https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/LAB/198
• New York Labor Law § 215: https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/LAB/215
• New York Labor Law § 740: https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/LAB/740
• New York Executive Law § 296: https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/EXC/296
• New York Executive Law § 297: https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/EXC/297
• 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-5: https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/42/2000e-5
• 29 U.S.C. § 255: https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/29/255
• 42 U.S.C. § 1981a: https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/42/1981a

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Lely did not lose a trial. It resolved a charge after the EEOC’s investigation found a raise withheld on the basis of sex and an age-based constructive discharge. Under New York law the same record supports broader claims and longer deadlines, and each of them depends on documents that exist before the resignation.

If you were denied a raise because of your sex or pushed out because of your age, call (516) 750-0595 with the job posting for your role and the date of your last paycheck, or request a free case review.