A bill that would lower the employment threshold for filing discrimination claims likely will be considered by the Legislature.

Attorney Robert Wilde told the Business and Labor Interim Committee on Wednesday that amending the the Utah Anti-Discrimination Act to lower the minimum number of employees required for employer coverage under the act would be beneficial in several ways.

The Utah act currently applies to companies with 15 or more workers, but Wilde said lowering the level to five or more workers would protect more companies from facing general damages such as those awarded for emotional distress, punitive damages and awards for "front pay," meaning lost wages an employee might experience in the future.

Workers filing a claim under the act also would likely face lower legal costs because they typically represent themselves through most of the process and only 5 percent of claims reach a point where the worker would need to hire a lawyer, he said.

Wilde cited three cases in Utah in which workers filed age, sexual or pregnancy-related claims but later were deemed by courts to have had no claim because their employers had fewer than 15 workers and therefore were not covered by the state act.

Most states have a discrimination-act threshold of six to seven employees, he said. The Utah act conforms with provisions of a federal law, which also puts the employment threshold at 15 except for cases of age discrimination, where it applies to companies with at least 20 workers, he said.

Wilde said a draft bill has not yet been written but likely will come before lawmakers in the future. But he expects it to add no costs to state government.

"The fiscal note that would be associated with this modification of the statute probably would be zero dollars," he told the committee. "It is not going to be a burden on employers who use common sense and fairness in the workplace ...."