Before any discrimination or retaliation lawsuit can be filed in Florida, the employee must first go through an administrative agency. That’s not a formality. It’s a legal requirement called exhaustion of administrative remedies, and skipping it means a court will dismiss the case regardless of how strong the underlying facts are. Missing the filing deadline produces the same result: the claim is gone, permanently, even if the discrimination was serious and well-documented.
For nearly 40 years, we at The Amlong Firm have helped Fort Lauderdale employees navigate this process at every stage, from the first intake call through trial. The administrative filing step is where many cases are quietly won or lost, long before a courtroom is ever involved. Understanding how it works and where the traps are is the first thing any employee in this situation needs to know.
Who Can File & What Qualifies as a Claim
Both the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and the Florida Commission on Human Relations cover employers with 15 or more employees. The Florida Civil Rights Act (Chapter 760, Florida Statutes) mirrors federal anti-discrimination law in most respects but goes further in a few important ways: it adds marital status as a protected category, and it more broadly extends protections to individuals based on AIDS/HIV status and sickle cell trait. These are categories federal law doesn’t cover.
Fort Lauderdale employees at smaller workplaces have a separate option. The Broward County Human Rights Section, located at 115 South Andrews Ave., Fort Lauderdale, FL 33301, handles employment discrimination complaints against employers with as few as five employees. It also covers sexual orientation, marital status, political affiliation, and gender identity claims regardless of employer size, making it the right first stop for claims that wouldn’t qualify at the state or federal level.
Retaliation is its own protected claim and stands independently of the original discrimination allegation. An employer who demotes, terminates, or otherwise punishes an employee for filing a complaint, participating in an investigation, or opposing discriminatory practices violates the law even if the underlying discrimination claim is later dismissed. What matters legally is the employee’s good faith in raising the original concern, not whether that claim ultimately succeeds.
Deadlines That Can End Your Claim Before It Starts
Florida is a Fair Employment Practices Agency (FEPA) deferral state, which means the EEOC deadline here is 300 days from the discriminatory act, not the 180-day period that applies in states without a state civil rights agency. That 300-day window sounds generous. Employees often discover it has passed while they were still deciding what to do. Claims filed only under the Florida Civil Rights Act with the FCHR carry a 365-day deadline from the date of the alleged violation. Missing either deadline means the claim can’t proceed at the respective agency or in court.
The continuing violation doctrine can extend the filing clock in specific circumstances. When discrimination is part of a sustained pattern such as an ongoing hostile work environment, the clock may run from the most recent act in the pattern rather than the first. But discrete adverse employment actions (a single termination, a particular demotion, a specific denial of promotion) each carry their own deadline. Employees who wait, hoping the situation will improve, often return to find that the individual events they wanted to include are no longer timely.
EEOC or FCHR: How the Dual-Filing System Works
Florida employees generally don’t have to choose between the two agencies. Under a work-sharing agreement between the EEOC and the FCHR, filing with one automatically preserves rights with the other. The agency that receives the charge first typically retains it for investigation while cross-filing it with the other agency.
Despite this coordination, the choice of which agency leads the investigation isn’t purely administrative. The Florida Civil Rights Act has a distinct damages structure: punitive damages for private employees are capped at $100,000, but there’s no cap on compensatory damages. Title VII, by contrast, caps both compensatory and punitive damages combined based on employer size. The lowest tier, covering employers of 15 to 100 employees, limits combined recovery to $50,000. For employees with significant lost wages or emotional distress losses, the Florida Civil Rights Act’s unlimited compensatory damages can matter considerably to the outcome.
One limitation worth knowing: the FCHR doesn’t cover public accommodation claims or all categories of whistleblower retaliation. Those claims require separate filings with the appropriate agency. We can identify which forum covers each theory before the charge is drafted.
How to File: The Step-by-Step Process
Both agencies have multiple submission methods, and each has procedural requirements that, if missed, result in rejection of the charge.
Filing with the EEOC
The EEOC Public Portal at publicportal.eeoc.gov allows employees to submit intake information and schedule an intake interview online. In-person appointments are handled at the EEOC Miami District Office, located at Miami Tower, 100 SE 2nd Street, Suite 1500, Miami, FL 33131, reachable at 786-648-5790. Appointments through the portal are strongly recommended; walk-ins are accepted on a first-come basis but may not be seen the same day. The formal document filed is the Charge of Discrimination (EEOC Form 5), and it must be signed by the charging party.
Filing with the FCHR
The FCHR accepts complaints online at fchr.myflorida.com, by mail, fax, or email. The complaint must be written, signed, and verified by the person filing. It must identify both parties, describe the alleged violation with sufficient specificity, and include the approximate number of employees at the employer.
The scope of what you include in this document matters more than most employees realize. Facts omitted from the charge of discrimination generally can’t be added in a later federal lawsuit. Courts interpreting Title VII apply the principle that only claims “like or reasonably related” to the charge can proceed to litigation, and investigators routinely narrow even that framing. A charge that says “I was terminated” without describing the discriminatory context or the protected class involved can produce a technical finding at the agency level that still can’t support a lawsuit.
What Happens After You File
After the charge is filed, the agency notifies the employer and the formal process begins. The two agencies handle this phase differently.
FCHR Timeline
Under Florida law, the FCHR has 180 days after a complaint is filed to complete its investigation and issue a determination. If no determination is issued within that window, the employee doesn’t have to keep waiting. Florida law allows the complainant to proceed to court as if a reasonable cause determination had been made, a right many employees don’t know they have.
EEOC Timeline & Mediation
The EEOC may offer voluntary confidential mediation before investigation begins. If both parties agree, mediation can resolve the charge in weeks rather than months. If mediation is declined or doesn’t produce a resolution, formal investigation proceeds. EEOC investigations in South Florida typically take six to twelve months, sometimes longer for complex cases. When the process concludes without resolution, the employee receives a Notice of Right to Sue. This document opens a 90-day window to file a federal lawsuit. Missing that deadline permanently bars the federal civil rights claim, regardless of how strong the underlying facts are.
Why an Attorney Should Be Involved Before You File
The FCHR investigator assigned to a case is a neutral fact-finder, not the employee’s advocate. Statements made during the investigation (in interviews, written responses, or submitted documents) become part of the official record. If the legal theory in a later lawsuit doesn’t align with what the employee said during the investigation, that inconsistency can be used at trial. This isn’t a technicality. It’s a strategic risk that surprises many employees who treated the investigation as an informal process.
Charge drafting is a legal decision, not a paperwork task. A charge that’s technically accepted but poorly scoped (one that omits key incidents, fails to identify the correct protected class, or doesn’t preserve all the legal theories the employee has) can close the federal courthouse door even when the employee is clearly in the right. With nearly 40 years of handling Florida discrimination and retaliation claims, our team at The Amlong Firm prepares charges with the same attention we bring to trial preparation, because in federal court, the charge is the foundation everything else is built on.
One more pitfall that often goes unaddressed: if an employer retaliates after the original charge is filed, that new workplace retaliation claim isn’t automatically covered by the first charge. It requires a separate, timely charge of its own. Failing to file forfeits the retaliation claim entirely, even when the connection to the original filing is obvious.
The Administrative Process Is the Gateway, Not a Formality
The EEOC and FCHR filing process is the required path to any legal remedy for workplace discrimination or retaliation in Florida. The charge itself isn’t just a complaint form. It defines the scope of any lawsuit that follows. Employees who understand this before they file are in a fundamentally stronger position than those who discover it afterward.
If you’re facing discrimination, harassment, or retaliation at work in Fort Lauderdale or anywhere in Broward County, we’re available to speak with you confidentially about your situation. Reach our team at (954) 953-5490.