1. §1981 — race claims only
42 U.S.C. §1981 is an independent civil rights statute predating Title VII. It covers race discrimination (and racial-ancestry / ethnicity discrimination) in contracts, including employment contracts.
Key features:
- 4-year statute of limitations per Jones v. R.R. Donnelley, 541 U.S. 369 (2004), applied to post-1990 race claims.
- No EEOC charge required. File directly in federal district court.
- No employer-size minimum. Applies regardless of headcount.
- Compensatory and punitive damages available without the Title VII caps.
What §1981 does not cover: sex, age, disability, religion, national origin, or genetic information. For non-race claims you need a different fallback.
2. State Human Rights Law SOLs
Many states have their own anti-discrimination laws with substantially longer statutes of limitations than the federal 180/300-day window:
- California FEHA — 3 years (post-AB 9, 2020) from discriminatory act
- Illinois IHRA — 730 days (post-2024)
- Ohio — 730 days (post-2021)
- New York State HRL — 3 years
- New York City HRL — 3 years
- New Jersey LAD — 2 years
- Oregon — 5 years for some claims
- Massachusetts — 3 years
State SOLs generally run from the discriminatory act, not from the EEOC notice. Filing the federal charge typically does not toll the state SOL — it runs on its own clock from the act date. If you are within the state window and not the federal window, the state path is the live path.
3. Parallel state-law tort claims
State common-law torts generally are not preempted by Title VII. Available claims vary by state but commonly include:
- Wrongful termination in violation of public policy — the employer fired you for refusing to do something illegal, or for exercising a statutory right.
- Intentional infliction of emotional distress (IIED) — extreme and outrageous conduct directed at the plaintiff.
- Defamation — false statements about you communicated to third parties that damaged your reputation.
- Breach of express or implied contract — written employment contracts, handbook provisions, oral promises.
- Tortious interference — when a third party interferes with an employment relationship through wrongful means.
Each runs on the state's general tort SOL (typically 1-6 years depending on state and tort type). These claims have their own elements and remedies and often work alongside discrimination claims rather than instead of them.
4. EPA — never required the EEOC step
The Equal Pay Act covers sex-based pay discrimination and lets the worker sue directly in federal court. The SOL is 2 years from each underpayment, or 3 years if the violation is willful. Each underpaid paycheck restarts the clock under the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act.
If your case is fundamentally a pay-disparity case (men and women in substantially equal roles being paid differently), EPA is often available even when the Title VII window has closed.
What does NOT survive
The 90-day post-Notice-of-Right-to-Sue window is jurisdictional. Once it passes for a specific charge, that federal Title VII / ADA / GINA claim is generally barred — even if the underlying conduct also supports a §1981 or state-law claim. The §1981 / state / tort claims survive on their own clocks, not because the federal claim was "saved."
Talk to a licensed attorney
Post-deadline fallback analysis is where attorney involvement matters most. State SOLs, tort elements, and §1981 race-coding all turn on case-specific facts. The decoder surfaces the fallback categories that apply to your input combination; an employment-law attorney in your state translates them into a live litigation plan.