Today’s Legal Minute for Small Businesses: Do you screen potential employees using Facebook or other online sites?  If so, you may have a potential litigation nightmare on your hands and not even know it.  By using online sites such as Facebook, LinkedIn, or Twitter to help determine if you want to hire someone, you may be opening yourself up to a lawsuit for discrimination.  By looking at a Facebook site, especially one with pictures, you may be able to determine someone’s sex, race, martial status, and approximate age.  This information cannot in most instances be used to discriminate against someone; however, once you have this information it is difficult to prove that you did not interview someone based on something other than this information.  If you use online searches to research potential employees and want to make sure you limit your legal liability, please feel free to contact me, your Denver business attorney, 720-258-6647 or Elizabeth.Lewis@eclewis.com.