Civil Rights

The attorneys at Layser & Freiwald have significant experience handling civil rights and discrimination cases. These include cases against corporate and governmental entities and involve claims of discrimination in the work place, in retail stores and in the conduct of government employees.

The firm has handled or is now handling civil rights cases including the following:

• Mr. Layser is handling claims for more than two dozen inmates and guards at a New Jersey county jail who all contracted MRSA, a deadly bacterial infection.
• Mr. Freiwald represents three African-American financial advisors who claim they were discriminated against at Ameriprise. The three individuals claim they were subjected to unfair compliance actions by company managers.
• Mr. Layser achieved a settlement on behalf of a woman who was the victim of nursing home neglect in a municipal nursing home. The conduct in question, which Mr. Layser revealed during the litigation, was so egregious that the state authorities cited the facility, leading to additional claims of civil rights violations. At the time, this was thought to be the first civil rights case in the country filed against a nursing facility.
• Mr. Freiwald led a team of lawyers against a national retailer and a New York-based security company in a case alleging violations of state and federal civil rights laws. The claims were that an armed security guard and store employees falsely accused three young African-American boys (all brothers) of shoplifting, then assaulted and falsely imprisoned the boys. The case resulted in a six-figure settlement.
• Mr. Freiwald achieved a six-figure settlement on behalf of a man who was terminated from his employment after warning his supervisors that the company was improperly billing Medicare for its services.
• Claims of police brutality leading to the death of a young man in Northern New Jersey.