Massachusetts gives employees a limited window to act when they have experienced discrimination or retaliation. In most cases, you have three hundred days from the last act of discrimination to file a charge with the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination (MCAD). That is not a flexible guideline; it is a deadline. Once it passes, your ability to bring a legal claim is usually gone.
The last act of discrimination or retaliation can be a termination, a demotion, a denial of medical leave, a pay cut, or a pattern of harassment that continues into the three hundred-day period. People often wait because they are hoping things will improve, or because they are overwhelmed, injured, or out of work and trying to stabilize their lives. By the time they feel ready to speak to a lawyer, the deadline is sometimes only days away—or already behind them.
Filing with MCAD does not mean you have committed to years of litigation. In many cases, it is simply a way to preserve your rights while you consider your options. Once a timely filing has been made, there is more room to think, to negotiate, and to decide whether the case should be pushed further or resolved through a severance or settlement. When no filing is made within the three hundred days, most of those options disappear, no matter how serious the underlying conduct was.
Pre-litigation work around the MCAD deadline is often about timing and leverage. Part of my role is to help clients decide whether the facts and documentation justify a formal filing, whether an early negotiation makes sense, and how to avoid missing the deadline while they are still trying to understand what happened to them. Each employer responds differently depending on its size, internal culture, and legal risk tolerance. The law sets the framework, but strategy determines what is realistically possible within that framework.
Acting before the deadline does not guarantee a particular result. It simply keeps the door open. Once the three hundred days pass, that door is usually closed, and even a strong moral case may have little legal remedy left. The most common regret I hear is not “I filed too early,” but “I waited too long.”
Key takeaways
- The 300-day MCAD deadline is strict, and missing it usually ends the case
- Filing preserves your rights — it does not lock you into litigation
- Waiting feels understandable, but it is the most common mistake