Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits race discrimination in employment, but it does not define what race means. Over the past decade, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has shifted its definition of...more
Despite the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s more nuanced position, federal courts have generally rejected attempts by plaintiffs to claim that an indefinite leave of absence is a required reasonable accommodation...more
On October 12, California Governor Jerry Brown signed into law a measure that prohibits employers from using salary history at prior jobs to determine starting pay for applicants. The law will also require California...more
Perhaps the most frequent question we receive with regard to employee medical leave involves the following scenario: An employee requests and is provided family and medical leave. Upon the expiration of the 12-week FMLA...more
Under the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 (IRCA), employers are prohibited from hiring persons not authorized to work in the U.S. In order to resolve some employment disputes, employers agree to reinstate an...more
Two recent major news stories again involve the intersection of politics with employment law. In the first matter, Google fired a programmer after he posted an internal document criticizing the company’s diversity...more
8/23/2017
/ Adverse Employment Action ,
Diversity ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Employment Policies ,
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) ,
First Amendment ,
Free Speech ,
Google ,
Hate Speech ,
Hiring & Firing ,
NLRA ,
NLRB ,
Political Expression ,
Protected Concerted Activity ,
Race Discrimination ,
Retaliation
Beginning when the first states legalized use of marijuana for medical or recreational purposes, employers began speculating whether legislatures and courts in those states would continue to permit employers to exclude...more
Over the past several years, we have reported on a seemingly never-ending series of National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) decisions proclaiming a variety of abusive employee practices as protected behavior under federal labor...more
On July 6, the full Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals declined to hear the appeal of a case dismissing a sexual orientation bias claim under Title VII for lack of jurisdiction. This decision creates a split among the federal...more
Employers sometimes defend retaliation claims by responding that the person or persons making the adverse employment decision was not aware of the plaintiff’s prior complaint. In the employment discrimination context, the...more
A politically divided nation can mean a politically divided workplace. While employers generally hesitate to react to employees’ expression of political views, some comments viewed as extreme, threatening or inconsistent with...more
Employers that use workers eligible under H-1B non-immigrant visas agree that in the event of termination of employment, they will offer the employee payment for transportation home in certain circumstances. Earlier this...more
For years, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) and federal courts have acknowledged that employers do not have to excuse employee disciplinary violations because the employee later attributes such conduct to a...more
The Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) does not require employers to agree to allow employees to work from home based on medical restrictions. The Americans with Disabilities Act may require employers to provide such...more
Last Tuesday’s election resulted in California and Massachusetts approving referendums to legalize recreational marijuana use. In addition, Florida and several other states passed or expanded medical marijuana use laws....more
The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) recently approved revisions to its 2017-2021 Strategic Enforcement Plan (SEP). The SEP provides employers with an indication of where the agency will concentrate...more
How would your company react if legal counsel advised you that the mere act of recruiting on college campuses exposes the business to class action employment discrimination claims? Fortunately, this scenario will not happen...more
In recent years, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has attempted to expand the definition of race under Title VII. The agency takes the position that race includes cultural characteristics and individual expressions...more
Employees on approved Family and Medical Leave are entitled to reinstatement upon return to the same or an equivalent position. Commonly, when the employee is absent on leave, the employer discovers work performance issues...more
Employers already know that Title VII prohibits discrimination on the basis of national origin and citizenship status. However, they may not be aware that the federal Immigration and Nationality Act also contains...more
Earlier this month, Massachusetts’ Republican governor signed into law a bipartisan bill requiring employers to pay men and women equally for similar work. The law’s basic requirement is one in place in many states and under...more
In a typical corporate transaction, the parties structure the deal as an asset purchase, whereby the buyer purchases essentially all of the company’s property, equipment, goodwill, customer lists, etc. If the asset purchase...more
When a terminated employee alleges that her firing resulted from discrimination or retaliation, employers often dispute those claims by noting that the employer never hired anyone to take the terminated employee’s position....more
7/26/2016
/ Appeals ,
Corporate Counsel ,
Harassment ,
Hiring & Firing ,
National Origin Discrimination ,
Protected Class ,
Religious Discrimination ,
Remand ,
Retaliation ,
Reversal ,
Termination ,
Title VII
In 2012, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission issued an Enforcement Guidance stating when employers’ use of criminal background checks to exclude applicants from jobs violates Title VII. The Guidance states the EEOC’s...more
7/13/2016
/ Appeals ,
Attorney General ,
Criminal Background Checks ,
Disparate Impact ,
Enforcement Guidance ,
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) ,
Felons ,
Hiring & Firing ,
Job Applicants ,
Justiciable Controversy ,
Remand ,
Standing ,
Title VII
How should Human Resources respond to the following scenario?: An employee reports that she recently separated from her husband and obtained a domestic violence restraining order. Several co-workers approach HR to report that...more