Discrimination in Contracting and Doing Business

When most people who think about the New Jersey Law Against Discrimination (“LAD”), they probably think about the fact that it prohibits employment discrimination and workplace harassment. Some people also realize it protects tenants and home buyers from discrimination in housing.

However, most people do not realize the LAD also prohibits discrimination in contracting and doing business with other people and businesses.

More precisely, a provision of the LAD deems it unlawful discrimination for “any person to refuse to buy from, sell to, lease from or to, license, contract with, or trade with, provide goods, services or information to, or otherwise do business with any other person on the basis of” one of the specified legally-prohibited categories.

Not all types of discrimination in contacting or doing business violates the LAD. Rather, the discrimination must be because of a specified legally-protected category. Those categories include:

• Race;
• Color;
• Age
• Disability;
• Gender / Sex;
• Pregnancy;
• Religion;
• National origin;
• Ancestry;
• Sexual Orientation;
• Gender identity or expression;
• Marital status; and
• Military status

The protections that subsection of the LAD creates are both broad and important. For example, they protect independent contractors, consultants, gig workers, independent sales representative, and other workers who are not employees.

But they go far beyond that. For example, they also protect businesses and individuals who are buying, selling, trading, or otherwise trying to do business with someone else.

At Rabner Baumgart Ben-Asher & Nirenberg, P.C., our New Jersey discrimination lawyers represent individuals and business that have experienced discrimination in violation of the LAD.

But that’s not all. The LAD’s prohibition against discrimination in contracting and doing business does not merely apply to discrimination because of your own membership in a legally-protected category. Rather, it also applies if the discrimination is based on the membership of an individual or company’s “spouse, partners, members, stockholders, directors, officers, managers, superintendents, agents, employees, business associates, suppliers, or customers.”

Thus, for example, it would be unlawful for someone to fire, refuse to hire, or otherwise refuse to do business with a consultant because they are married to someone who is of a particular race or color. Likewise, it would be illegal to refuse to agree to do business with a company because of the religion, sexual orientation or disability of one of its employees or customers. That makes this portion of the LAD extremely broad.

Further, by prohibiting discrimination in contracting and doing business, the LAD presumably also makes it unlawful to harass a contractor, consultant, owner, customer, suppliers, or someone else you or your company has a business relationship with based on one of those legally-prohibited reasons.

Harassment typically occurs when a series of relatively small actions, when considered as a whole, is serious enough to make your environment hostile. However, it also can include one or a few more severe actions. To be actionable, harassment has to have occurred due to someone’s membership (or perceived membership) in a legally-protected category.

In addition to prohibiting discrimination, the LAD also has a broad anti-retaliation provision. Under that provision, it is unlawful to retaliate against someone because they reported something they sincerely believe violates the LAD. That includes, among other things, prohibiting retaliating against someone because they objected about something they reasonable believed constitutes prohibited discrimination in contracting or doing business.

If you have experienced discrimination, harassment or retaliation in New Jersey, we can help. We welcome you to contact us online, or to call us at (201) 777-2250, to schedule an initial consultation.

From our main office in Bergen County, we represent individuals throughout the state of New Jersey. For your convenience, we offer consultations in person, via Zoom and over the telephone.

We are located at 135 Chestnut Ridge Road, Suite 230, Montvale, New Jersey 07645.

For related information, you may want to read our article: Sexual Harassment of Independent Contractor Can Violate New Jersey Law Against Discrimination.