Time limit in application for employment is applied to eliminate racial discrimination claim
Stephania Donald was hired as a youth care worker by Wolverine Human Services in 2007. Two years later she was fired. She claimed that she was passed over for promotion and then fired as a result of racial discrimination. Unfortunately for her, when she applied for work in 2007, the employer's employment application "allowed" her to contract away her civil rights by requiring her to waive any wrongs done to her if she didn't sue within 180 days. Since she didn't immediately sue when she was passed over or when she was fired, she was not allowed to bring any action against the employer. The normal time limits (usually three years) contained in state and federal law were "waived."
Who knows whether Donald's claim was well-founded? It was never heard on the merits and the Defendant wasn't even required to present a summary defense to the claims of discrimination. Rather, on the basis of fine print in an employment application that she had probably long forgotten, Donald "waived" her civil rights before she was even wronged. It is a despicable development in the law that allows employers to require desparate, job-starved job applicants to waive their civil rights in order to be considered for employment. This country just isn't what it once was, in terms of the balance between individual rights and corporate/employer power. The activist judges who have wiped out citizens' rights with the semantic justification that they are only "honoring the individual's right to contract" should be ashamed.