Legal Definitions - continuing-violation doctrine

The continuing-violation doctrine is a legal principle, developed by courts rather than through specific laws, that addresses situations where discriminatory actions are not isolated incidents but rather part of an ongoing pattern or series of related unlawful behaviors. Its primary purpose is to allow individuals to file a lawsuit for these persistent discriminatory acts, even if some of those acts occurred outside the standard legal deadline (known as the statute of limitations) for filing a claim. Essentially, if the discrimination is continuous, the clock for filing a lawsuit might be extended to cover the entire period of the ongoing violation.

Here are some examples illustrating how the continuing-violation doctrine might apply:

• Example 1: Persistent Gender Pay Disparity

  Imagine a female employee discovers she has been consistently paid less than male colleagues with similar experience and responsibilities for the past four years. The statute of limitations for filing a pay discrimination claim might be, for instance, 180 days from the discriminatory act. If she only realized the disparity recently, many of her past lower paychecks would individually fall outside this 180-day window.

  How it illustrates the doctrine: Under the continuing-violation doctrine, she could argue that each paycheck she received at a discriminatory lower rate constitutes a new instance of the same ongoing discriminatory pay practice. This allows her to challenge the entire pattern of unequal pay over the four years, not just the most recent paychecks, because the discrimination is considered continuous rather than a series of isolated, time-barred events.

• Example 2: Ongoing Hostile Work Environment

  Consider an employee who has endured a pattern of racially offensive jokes, derogatory comments, and exclusion from team activities by a supervisor and co-workers over an 18-month period, creating a hostile work environment. While some of these incidents occurred more than a year ago, the behavior continued until very recently.

  How it illustrates the doctrine: The continuing-violation doctrine would likely apply here because the harassment is not a single, isolated event but a series of related, ongoing actions that collectively contribute to a hostile environment. The employee could file a claim covering the entire 18-month period, even if individual acts within that period would otherwise be time-barred, because the cumulative effect constitutes a continuing violation of their rights.

• Example 3: Systemic Failure to Accommodate a Disability

  A qualified employee with a disability repeatedly requests reasonable accommodations for their condition over a two-year period, such as ergonomic equipment or a modified work schedule. Each request is denied, or the accommodation provided is inadequate, leading to ongoing difficulties at work. Some of these denials occurred more than a year before the employee decides to file a complaint.

  How it illustrates the doctrine: If the employee can demonstrate that the employer's repeated denials or inadequate responses are part of a systemic, ongoing failure to provide reasonable accommodations, the continuing-violation doctrine could allow them to challenge the entire pattern of non-accommodation. The court would view the series of denials and inadequate responses as a single, ongoing discriminatory practice, rather than isolated incidents, thereby extending the time to file a lawsuit for all related instances.