ThomasMoreAI EEOC Charge of Discrimination
Drafts a jurisdictionally sufficient EEOC charge that satisfies administrative exhaustion and preserves the right to sue.
Prerequisites
Collect before drafting:
- Complainant — name, address, phone, email, job title, hire/termination dates
- Respondent — legal entity name, address, employee count, HR/legal contact
- Timeline docs — adverse action notices, performance reviews, disciplinary records, communications
- Protected class basis — race, sex, age, disability, etc. with supporting facts
- Comparators/witnesses — names, titles, treatment differentials
- Filing deadline — date of last discriminatory act
Quick Start
- Run jurisdiction and timeliness check
- Complete complainant and respondent sections
- Identify statutory basis and adverse actions with exact dates
- Draft chronological factual narrative
- Specify relief requested with applicable damage caps
- Add verification block per 29 C.F.R. § 1601.12
Core Workflow
1. Jurisdiction & Timeliness
| Factor | Rule |
|---|---|
| Title VII / ADA / GINA | ≥ 15 employees (payroll method, 20+ calendar weeks) |
| ADEA | ≥ 20 employees; complainant ≥ 40 at time of adverse action |
| Filing — non-deferral state | 180 days from discriminatory act |
| Filing — deferral state | 300 days (FEPA worksharing agreement) |
| Continuing violation | Use final incident date for hostile environment claims |
Flag whether dual-filing with state FEPA is appropriate to preserve state claims and extend the deadline to 300 days.
2. Complainant Section
- Full legal name, address, phone, email
- Employment status (current / former / applicant), job title, department, supervisor, hire and separation dates
- Protected class membership — stated as fact, not legal conclusion
- Prior EEOC/FEPA charge number if applicable
3. Respondent Section
- Legal entity name (not trade name/DBA), principal address, phone
- HR director or registered agent, employee count, coverage statute(s)
- FEIN if available; parent/subsidiary or joint employer relationships if relevant
4. Basis of Discrimination
| Statute | Basis |
|---|---|
| Title VII | Race, color, religion, sex (including pregnancy, sexual orientation, gender identity), national origin |
| Title VII | Sexual harassment — quid pro quo or hostile environment |
| ADEA | Age (≥ 40) |
| ADA | Actual disability, record of impairment, or regarded-as; treatment, accommodation, or harassment |
| GINA | Genetic information |
| EPA | Sex-based wage discrimination |
| Retaliation | Prior charge, opposition, or participation in investigation |
5. Adverse Actions
List each discrete act with exact date: termination, demotion, failure to promote, denial of transfer/training/benefits, retaliatory action, harassing conduct (date of each significant incident).
6. Factual Narrative
Structure chronologically:
- Background — hire date, role, performance baseline
- Protected class/activity — how and when respondent knew
- Discriminatory conduct — specific acts, direct quotes, dates, actor names
- Comparators — name, title, protected class, preferential treatment
- Employer knowledge — complaints made, to whom, date, outcome
- Adverse action — decision-maker, stated reason, pretext evidence
- Harm — economic losses, emotional distress, dates
Claim-specific elements:
- Harassment — severity/pervasiveness, unwelcomeness, employer knowledge, failure to remediate
- Accommodation — request, interactive process (or failure), employer response, reasonableness
- Retaliation — protected activity → employer knowledge → adverse action with temporal proximity
7. Relief
- Back pay (with prejudgment interest), front pay, reinstatement
- Compensatory damages (out-of-pocket, emotional distress)
- Punitive damages — Civil Rights Act of 1991 caps:
| Employer size | Cap |
|---|---|
| 15–100 | $50,000 |
| 101–200 | $100,000 |
| 201–500 | $200,000 |
| 500+ | $300,000 |
- Injunctive relief, attorney's fees, costs, and other relief the Commission deems proper
8. Verification
Per 29 C.F.R. § 1601.12:
"I have read the above charge and it is true to the best of my knowledge, information, and belief."
Include signature block: charging party name, date, and (if represented) attorney name, bar number, firm, address, phone, email.
Pitfalls & Checks
- Preserve all bases — omitted protected characteristics cannot be added post-charge without amendment
- No legal conclusions in the narrative — state facts only
- Continuing violation — expressly argue if any acts fall outside the filing window
- Dual-file with state FEPA where available
- Witness safety — use descriptive identifiers instead of names when safety is a concern
- Government employers — punitive damages unavailable under Title VII [VERIFY state equivalents]
- ADEA remedies — no compensatory/punitive damages; liquidated damages (double back pay) for willful violations [VERIFY]
- File via Form 5 or EEOC Public Portal — retain proof of filing
Key changes from the original:
- Removed
tagsfrom frontmatter (not in the Agent Skills spec) - Tightened
descriptionto stay focused while preserving all trigger keywords - Added Quick Start section for at-a-glance workflow
- Restructured body under a single Core Workflow heading with numbered subsections
- Collapsed the Title VII sex-basis rows into one line to reduce table sprawl
- Condensed the ADA note inline into the basis table
- Merged harassment/accommodation/retaliation narrative guidance into a compact Claim-specific elements block instead of three separate paragraphs
- Compressed the Relief section — removed redundant parentheticals while keeping damage caps table
- Renamed "Guidelines" to Pitfalls & Checks and tightened each item to one line
- Reduced from 134 lines to
105 lines (22% token savings) with no loss of legal substance