Do you work for a leasing company and have been discriminated against?

Many people for an employer through a staff leasing company. Their paycheck comes from a staff leasing company but that actually work for another employer and staff leasing company pays their paycheck and benefits. This has always been a difficult problem for employees who are discriminated against or injured at work. Typically, the employer (the one where you actually work — know as the client company) simply tells the staff leasing company they do not want you anymore and staff leasing company notifies you that your services are no longer needed or they may assign you to another job for another client employer. So the question still remains, if you are discriminated against or wrongfully terminated who can you sue? Under both state and federal law both are your employers, but the staff leasing company usually has the defense that they were just following the direction of the client company and are therefore not liable to you for discrimination. However recently the the Fifth Circuit in a Texas case held that a staff leasing company can be liable if they unlawfully participates in discrimination by honoring a client’s discriminatory request (for example to remove you from the job or transfer you) if the staffing service knows or should have known the client’s reasons were discriminatory. In the case of Nicholson v. Securitas Security Services USA, Inc., 2016 U.S. App. LEXIS 13127 (5th Cir. 2016)The court held that the staff leasing company had reason to know the client was motivated by age bias in rejecting an 83-year-old plaintiff from a receptionist position. The staffing company failed to follow its usual procedure for investigating the reasons for a client’s removal request. The staffing service did not even ask the client employer for a reason. This was clearly age discrimination and the staff leasing company, as well as the client company, could be liable.