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Comment by dantillberg | Hacker News Reader

Indeed, though is there any protected status in the US for "people that make use of the court system" that would bar such discrimination? As a landlord, legal costs will eat into your margins real fast. The landlord uses this service to gauge their own risk taking this person on as a tenant, and the presumption (accurate, I'd imagine) is that past landlord-tenant court records predicts a higher chance that this landlord will incur legal costs (and possibly also negative judgments) with this tenant as well.

Personally, I certainly don't like this practice as a prospective tenant, but it would nonetheless be tempting to consider using it were I a landlord.

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> it would nonetheless be tempting to consider using it were I a landlord.

Of course it would. I still don't like this practice.

> is there any protected status in the US for "people that make use of the court system" that would bar such discrimination?

There are certain laws that protect people who use the court system in some ways, but there is not (to my knowledge) a general protection. But whistleblowers, litigants in harassment claims, etc. have anti-retaliatory protections.

Would it be considered retaliation to not hire a candidate who was a whistleblower at their previous company though?

I do not think the whistleblower has any right to legal protection outside their previous company. Which means they may have to work there for life.

If the whistle-blower acted in concert with even one other coworker, and made it clear to all that their actions were concerted, and the whistleblowing was itself legal (e.g. not divulging a trade secret for the sole purpose or harming the employer), then the refusal to hire such a worker could be a violation of 8(a)1 of the National Labor Relations Act.

But this would be hard to demonstrate in most circumstances.

I believe 8(a)1 only covers existing employer/employee relationships.

It depends. Almost all whistleblower laws are statutory and vary by jurisdiction and subject. Therefore, it just depends on how the statute is phrased - and almost never did the legislature even consider this (or other questions like “What if the whistleblower was wrong?”) So, the results tend to vary considerably.

It is not considered retaliation legally. Whistleblowers, people who complain about bad treatment or sexual harassments or illegal practices in fact do have bigger problems to get hired.

The janitor at my old job sued his previous employer for racial discrimination. It was extremely egregious and well documented. He couldn't get hired anywhere else in his previous field because when you googled his name the court documents were the first thing that popped up.

Yep. I remember reading about a woman who was whistleblower - she exposed serious financial crime and even got special reward for it (from some non-profit). People involved in crime in fact ended up in prison.

Later, there was interview with her and she said she had huge problem to find a new job for years. Employers really did not like that she exposed someone else.

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