What Is the Colorado Anti-Discrimination Act (CADA)?

The Colorado Anti-Discrimination Act, known as CADA, is a state law that prohibits discrimination in employment, housing, and public accommodations based on a wider set of protected characteristics than federal law covers, applies to every Colorado employer regardless of size, and lets you file a complaint through the Colorado Civil Rights Division to recover back pay, reinstatement, and other relief.

What CADA Protects You Against

CADA’s protected categories shift slightly depending on whether you’re dealing with a job, a rental, or a business open to the public, but the core list is broad.

In employment, the Act prohibits discrimination based on disability, race, creed, color, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, marital status, religion, age (40 and older), national origin, and ancestry.¹ That list goes past federal Title VII, which does not explicitly name sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, or marital status.

In housing, the protected classes include everything on the employment list plus familial status and veteran or military status.² Familial status means a landlord cannot turn you away because you have children. Veteran protections go beyond what the federal Fair Housing Act requires.

For public accommodations, protections cover disability, race, creed, color, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, marital status, national origin, and ancestry.³

Race Includes Hair Texture and Protective Hairstyles

Colorado’s CROWN Act, effective in 2020, expanded the definition of race under CADA to include hair texture, hair type, and protective hairstyles commonly associated with race, such as braids, locs, twists, cornrows, Bantu knots, and Afros.⁴ A grooming policy that effectively bars these hairstyles is race discrimination under Colorado law.

Who Has to Follow CADA

Every Employer in the State

CADA applies to all employers in Colorado regardless of headcount.¹ Federal Title VII only kicks in at 15 employees, so if you work for a two-person shop in Denver, CADA may be your only route. The Act also reaches employment agencies, labor organizations, and apprenticeship programs.

Landlords, Agents, and Lenders

The housing provisions cover anyone involved in selling, renting, financing, or managing residential property: landlords, property management companies, real estate agents, and lenders. The Act prohibits discrimination in making housing available, setting terms and conditions of tenancy, and providing financial assistance for buying or keeping a home.²

Businesses Open to the Public

Colorado defines “place of public accommodation” broadly: any business selling to the public and any place offering services, facilities, or accommodations to the public. The statute lists restaurants, hotels, recreational facilities, barber shops, gyms, hospitals, educational institutions, public parks, theaters, museums, and libraries. Places principally used for religious purposes, such as churches, synagogues, and mosques, are excluded from the public accommodation rules.³

What Counts as a Violation

In Employment

CADA makes it unlawful for an employer to refuse to hire, fire, promote or demote, harass, or discriminate in pay or other terms of employment because of a protected characteristic.¹ It also bars job ads that state a preference or limitation based on a protected class, unless a bona fide occupational qualification applies.

In Housing

Housing violations include refusing to show, sell, rent, or lease based on a protected characteristic, setting different terms for different tenants on that basis, and asking about a prospective tenant’s race, religion, disability, familial status, or other protected traits.² A landlord asking whether you have children, what church you attend, or whether you have a disability is violating the Act just by asking.

In Public Accommodations

A business open to the public cannot refuse service, withhold access, or treat customers differently because of a protected characteristic, and cannot post or circulate messages signaling that someone’s patronage is unwelcome.³

Retaliation

Retaliation is where many discrimination cases start. CADA prohibits adverse action against anyone who opposed a discriminatory practice, filed a charge with the Colorado Civil Rights Commission, or participated in an investigation or hearing.¹ The same prohibition applies in public accommodations.³

Retaliation protection applies even if the underlying complaint turns out to be unfounded. What matters is that you had a good-faith, reasonable belief that discrimination occurred. An employer who fires you for filing a complaint cannot defend the termination by arguing the complaint was wrong on the merits.

Filing Deadlines

Get this part right. Missing the deadline ends the claim. CADA has three different windows depending on what happened:

Employment: 300 days from the date you received notice of the discriminatory act.
Housing: one year from the date of the discriminatory act.
Public accommodations: 60 days from the date of the discriminatory act.

These deadlines come from the Colorado Civil Rights Division (CCRD), where all CADA complaints are filed.⁵ The public accommodations window is especially short. Wait three months after a restaurant or hotel incident and you’ve already lost the claim.

How to File and What Happens Next

You start by submitting a charge of discrimination to the CCRD, describing what happened, who was involved, and when. The CCRD reviews the charge to confirm it falls within CADA’s scope and was filed on time.⁵ Once accepted, the agency investigates, with authority to compel witness testimony and documents, and both sides can submit evidence.⁶

The CCRD director then makes a probable cause determination. If there’s no probable cause, the charge is dismissed. If there is, the respondent is served with written notice stating the basis, and both sides are ordered into compulsory mediation. Many cases settle there. If mediation stalls, the case goes to the Colorado Civil Rights Commission for a formal hearing that functions like a trial.⁶

Going to Court Instead

You are not locked into the administrative process. In employment cases, the CCRD issues a Right to Sue letter when it closes its investigation, letting you file in civil court.⁵ You can also request a Right to Sue before the investigation finishes if you want to go straight to litigation. The CCRD route costs nothing to start and does not require a lawyer, but you follow the agency’s timeline. A lawsuit gives you more control and potentially broader damages, with filing fees and attorney costs attached. Employment attorneys in Colorado commonly charge between roughly $150 and $350 per hour, and many take discrimination cases on contingency.

What You Can Recover

If discrimination is substantiated through the administrative process, the Commission can order equitable relief meant to put you back where you would have been without the discrimination.⁶ Common remedies include reinstatement, back pay for lost wages, and compensation for emotional distress. The Commission can also order corrective actions aimed at preventing future violations, such as policy changes, mandatory training, or revised hiring procedures.

If you pursue the same claim in federal court under Title VII, federal law caps compensatory and punitive damages by employer size: $50,000 for employers with 15 to 100 employees, $100,000 for 101 to 200, $200,000 for 201 to 500, and $300,000 for employers with more than 500 employees.⁷ Those federal caps do not apply to CADA claims pursued through the state system.

Taxes on a Settlement

Winning a settlement is one thing; keeping the money after taxes is another. Back pay is fully taxable as ordinary income. Emotional distress damages are generally taxable unless they stem from a physical injury or physical sickness. The one exception: a portion that reimburses you for actual medical expenses you paid out of pocket and did not previously deduct can be excluded from gross income. Emotional distress damages are not subject to Social Security or Medicare withholding.⁸ How a settlement agreement allocates the payment between categories can shift your tax bill meaningfully, so run it past a tax professional before you sign.

When an Employer or Landlord Has a Defense

Bona Fide Occupational Qualification

An employer can defend a decision tied to a protected characteristic if that characteristic is genuinely necessary to perform the job. This is a bona fide occupational qualification (BFOQ). CADA recognizes the defense, but courts construe it narrowly, and the employer must prove the qualification is reasonably necessary to the core function of the business, not just a preference.¹

Religious Organizations

CADA carves out an exception for religious organizations hiring individuals of a particular religion for work connected to the organization’s religious activities. A church can require that its pastor be a member of its faith. The exemption does not apply to religious organizations supported by taxpayer money or public borrowing.⁹

Age-Based Decisions

For age claims, CADA allows actions otherwise prohibited if age is a BFOQ reasonably necessary to operations, or if the decision is based on reasonable factors other than age.⁹ Mandatory retirement ages for airline pilots or public safety officers can fall under this. Senior housing communities may also be exempt from age-based housing claims.

Disability and Reasonable Accommodation

An employer is not violating CADA by declining to hire or retain a person with a disability if no reasonable accommodation exists that would let that person perform the essential functions of the job.¹ The key phrase is “essential functions.” An employer cannot pile on marginal duties to disqualify someone, and must actually explore accommodations before concluding none will work.

How CADA Compares to Federal Law

CADA and federal laws like Title VII, the ADA, and the Fair Housing Act overlap, but the differences change which path serves you better.

Employer size: Title VII and the ADA apply at 15 or more employees. CADA covers every employer. For small-business workers, CADA may be the only remedy.
Protected classes: CADA explicitly protects gender identity, gender expression, sexual orientation, and marital status. These are written into the statute rather than left to judicial interpretation.
Filing deadlines: For employment, both CADA and the EEOC give you 300 days. For housing, CADA gives you one year, while the federal Fair Housing Act allows up to two years for a civil action.¹⁰
Damage caps: Federal Title VII caps compensatory and punitive damages by employer size, topping out at $300,000. State CADA claims are not subject to those caps.⁷

You can file under both state and federal systems at once. The CCRD and EEOC have a work-sharing agreement, so filing with one agency can preserve rights under both. The procedures and available remedies still differ, so picking the right path early matters.

1
Justia Law. Colorado Code 24-34-402 – Discriminatory or Unfair Employment Practices
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Justia Law. Colorado Code 24-34-502 – Unfair Housing Practices Prohibited
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Justia Law. Colorado Code 24-34-601 – Discrimination in Places of Public Accommodation
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Colorado Civil Rights Division. Discrimination
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Colorado Civil Rights Division. The Complaint Process
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Justia Law. Colorado Code 24-34-306 – Complaint
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U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Remedies For Employment Discrimination
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Internal Revenue Service. Tax Implications of Settlements and Judgments
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Justia Law. Colorado Code 24-34-402 – Discriminatory or Unfair Employment Practices
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Colorado Civil Rights Division. Common Civil Rights Questions