How to File a Discrimination Lawsuit: From EEOC Charge to Court

To file a discrimination lawsuit under most federal civil rights laws, you have to complete an administrative step first: file a charge with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) within 180 or 300 days of the discriminatory act, wait for the agency to issue a Notice of Right to Sue, and then file your complaint in court within 90 days of receiving that notice. Skipping the EEOC step will get a Title VII or ADA lawsuit dismissed on procedural grounds alone. A few kinds of discrimination claims let you go straight to court, but they are the exception.

Confirm Federal Law Actually Covers Your Employer

Before you spend time on the process, check the size of the employer. Title VII of the Civil Rights Act and the Americans with Disabilities Act only reach employers with 15 or more employees for at least 20 calendar weeks in the current or preceding year. The Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA) sets a higher floor of 20 or more employees for the same period.¹ Below those thresholds, federal law may not help, though state and local anti-discrimination laws often cover smaller workplaces.

These thresholds are for employment discrimination. Housing discrimination goes through the Department of Housing and Urban Development, and public accommodation claims under Title III of the ADA follow their own rules, both discussed below.

Build Your File Before You File

Write down a dated timeline of every incident, with names, job titles, witnesses, and which supervisors knew what. Save every relevant document while you still have access: offer letters, performance reviews, disciplinary write-ups, termination letters, pay stubs, emails, texts, chat logs, the employer’s anti-discrimination policy, and the employee handbook. For housing claims, keep the application, any rejection, the lease terms offered, and all correspondence.

Screenshots and saved copies matter more than people expect. Employers delete emails and revise policies, and once you have been fired or turned away, your access to the record can disappear overnight.

File a Charge with the EEOC

For most employment discrimination claims, the first formal step is filing a “charge of discrimination” with the EEOC. This is not the lawsuit. It is the mandatory administrative step that gives the agency a chance to investigate or resolve the dispute. Without it, a federal court will dismiss a Title VII or ADA lawsuit on procedural grounds alone.²

The 180 or 300 Day Deadline

You have 180 calendar days from the discriminatory act to file. That extends to 300 calendar days if a state or local agency enforces a law prohibiting the same type of discrimination.³ Most states have such agencies, so the 300-day deadline applies in the majority of situations, but do not assume without checking.

Age discrimination has a narrower rule. For ADEA charges, the extension to 300 days only applies if a state law (not just a local ordinance) prohibits age discrimination and a state agency enforces it.²

The clock starts on the date the discrimination happened, not the day you figured out it was discrimination. If you were passed over on March 1, day one is March 1, no matter when you learned the reason. Missing this window almost always ends the claim.

How to Submit the Charge

The EEOC handles charges through its online Public Portal. You start with an inquiry, and the agency schedules an intake interview. If your concerns appear to fall under a law the EEOC enforces, the formal charge is drafted and filed.⁴ You can also file by mail or in person at an EEOC field office. Many states have Fair Employment Practices Agencies (FEPAs) with work-sharing agreements, so filing with one counts as filing with both.

After the charge is filed, the EEOC sends a copy to the employer and may offer mediation, which is free, voluntary, and confidential. A signed mediation agreement is enforceable in court like any other contract. If either side declines or no agreement is reached, the charge moves into the standard investigation.⁵

Claims You Can Bring Directly to Court

Not every discrimination claim runs through an administrative agency. Three important categories let you go straight to court.

Race discrimination under 42 U.S.C. § 1981 is one. If the claim involves race-based discrimination in making or enforcing a contract, which covers most employment relationships, you can sue in federal court without ever filing an EEOC charge. The EEOC does not enforce Section 1981.⁶ Claims arising under the 1991 amendments carry a four-year statute of limitations,⁷ and Section 1981 has no cap on compensatory or punitive damages.

Public accommodation claims under ADA Title III are another. If a business denied you access or equal treatment because of a disability, you can file suit with no pre-suit administrative step. The tradeoff is that private plaintiffs can only obtain injunctive relief and attorney’s fees, not monetary damages.

Housing discrimination is the third. Fair housing complaints go to HUD, not the EEOC. You must file a HUD complaint within one year of the last discriminatory act.⁸ You can also file directly in federal court under the Fair Housing Act without waiting for HUD to finish.

Get the Notice of Right to Sue

For claims that require an EEOC charge, the agency’s investigation eventually produces a Notice of Right to Sue. This document closes the EEOC’s file and gives you permission to take the case to court. The EEOC issues it automatically when the investigation ends or the charge is dismissed.

If the investigation is dragging, you do not have to wait. After 180 days from the date you filed the charge, you can request the Notice in writing, and the EEOC must issue it.⁹ Requesting it ends the agency’s involvement, so you are trading the chance of an agency-backed resolution for the ability to move forward on your own.

Once you receive the Notice, you have exactly 90 days to file the lawsuit in federal or state court.¹⁰ This is one of the hardest deadlines in employment law. Courts dismiss cases filed on day 91 with near-mechanical regularity, and there is almost no basis for extension. If you do not already have an attorney when the Notice arrives, finding one should be the first thing you do.

ADEA claims work differently. You can file suit 60 days after filing your charge without requesting or waiting for a right-to-sue notice.¹¹ If the EEOC later dismisses your age charge, the standard 90-day clock runs from the date you receive that dismissal.

File the Complaint in Court

With the right-to-sue letter in hand, you file a formal complaint in federal or state court. The complaint identifies who you are suing, describes what happened, cites the anti-discrimination laws that were violated, and states what relief you want, whether that is back pay, reinstatement, damages, or a combination.

Filing requires paying a court filing fee, which in federal court runs to several hundred dollars. If you cannot afford it, you can submit an “in forma pauperis” application asking the court to let you proceed without prepaying based on financial hardship.¹²

Filing alone does not start the case against the employer. You also have to complete “service of process,” meaning you deliver a copy of the complaint and a court-issued summons to the defendant following specific procedural rules. Federal rules generally give you 90 days after filing to complete service. An attorney handles this. If you are representing yourself, the court clerk’s office can explain the requirements, and most courts allow service by a professional process server or, in some circumstances, certified mail.

What You Can Recover

If you lost wages because of the discrimination, back pay covers what you would have earned from the date of the discriminatory act through judgment. If reinstatement is impractical, a court may award front pay for future lost wages.

For intentional discrimination based on race, color, national origin, sex, religion, disability, or genetic information, you can seek compensatory damages for emotional harm and out-of-pocket costs, and punitive damages for particularly egregious conduct. Federal law caps the combined total of these two categories based on employer size:¹³

15 to 100 employees: $50,000
101 to 200 employees: $100,000
201 to 500 employees: $200,000
More than 500 employees: $300,000

The caps apply per complaining party, not per claim, and back pay is not subject to them.

Age discrimination damages follow separate rules. Under the ADEA, compensatory and punitive damages are not available. If the employer’s conduct was especially reckless or malicious, you may receive liquidated damages equal to the back pay award, which effectively doubles it.¹⁴

Courts can also order reinstatement, promotion, reasonable accommodation, policy changes, posting of notices, and payment of attorney’s fees.¹⁴

You Have to Look for Work

If you were fired or forced out, you cannot stop working and expect full lost wages through trial. The law requires reasonable efforts to find comparable employment, and employers will raise this “duty to mitigate” as a defense to cut your back pay.¹⁵

Comparable employment means substantially similar pay, responsibilities, and working conditions. You do not have to take a minimum-wage job, but you do need to show you actively searched. Keep records of every application, interview, and response. Any wages you earn at a new job get deducted from a back pay award. The employer bears the burden of proving your efforts were unreasonable, but you make that easy if you have nothing to produce.¹⁵

Retaliation Is a Separate Violation

Filing a discrimination complaint, or participating in someone else’s, is legally protected. Every major federal anti-discrimination statute, including Title VII, the ADA, the ADEA, the Equal Pay Act, and GINA, prohibits retaliation.¹⁶

Protected activity falls into two categories. “Participation” means taking part in the formal process: filing a charge, cooperating with an investigation, or serving as a witness. “Opposition” means pushing back against what you reasonably believe is discrimination, such as complaining to a manager or HR. Both are protected, though opposition requires a good-faith, reasonable belief that the conduct actually violates the law.¹⁶

Retaliation is broader than firing. Demotions, suspensions, negative evaluations, denied promotions, schedule changes designed to push you out, and any other action likely to discourage a reasonable person from pursuing their rights can qualify.¹⁷ If you experience retaliation after filing a charge, you can file a separate retaliation charge with the EEOC. Retaliation claims are among the most commonly filed with the agency, and the suspicious timing often makes them easier to prove than the underlying discrimination.

Federal Employees Follow a Different Track

If you work for the federal government, the process is different and the first deadline is much shorter. You must contact an EEO counselor at your agency within 45 days of the discriminatory act. Each federal agency is required to post contact information for its EEO office. After counseling, you have 15 days from the counselor’s notice to file a formal complaint with your agency’s EEO office. The agency then has 180 days to investigate. You can request a hearing before an EEOC Administrative Judge within 30 days of receiving notice of your rights, or ask the agency itself to issue a decision.¹⁸

1
U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Coverage of Business/Private Employers
2
U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. How to File a Charge of Employment Discrimination
3
U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Time Limits For Filing A Charge
4
U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Filing A Charge of Discrimination
5
U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Mediation
6
U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Other Employment and Civil Rights Laws Not Enforced by the EEOC
7
Library of Congress. 42 U.S.C. 1981’s Contract Clause: Racial Equality in Contractual Relations
8
U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. Learn About FHEO’s Process to Report and Investigate Housing Discrimination
9
U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Filing a Lawsuit
10
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 42 U.S. Code 2000e-5 – Enforcement Provisions
11
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 29 USC 626 – Recordkeeping, Investigation, and Enforcement
12
United States Courts. Fee Waiver Application Forms
13
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 42 USC 1981a – Damages in Cases of Intentional Discrimination in Employment
14
U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Remedies For Employment Discrimination
15
U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Chapter 11 – Remedies
16
U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Enforcement Guidance on Retaliation and Related Issues
17
U.S. Department of Labor. Retaliation for Protected EEO Activity is Unlawful
18
U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Overview Of Federal Sector EEO Complaint Process