Earlier this month, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission announced separate settlements with CVS Caremark Corporation and Best Buy based on the companies’ use of personality assessments during the application process....more
On December 17, 2015, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit affirmed a district court’s dismissal of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s lawsuit against CVS Pharmacy. This lawsuit has been the subject...more
Last month, the Seventh Circuit again rejected the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s attempt to declare an employer’s standard severance agreement illegal under Title VII. The EEOC and CVS Pharmacy have clashed over...more
On December 17, the Seventh Circuit in U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission v. CVS Pharmacy, Inc., No. 14-3653 (7th Cir. Dec. 17, 2015), rejected the EEOC’s aggressive effort to sue an employer without engaging in...more
On December 17, 2015, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit upheld the dismissal of a lawsuit by the EEOC against CVS Pharmacy, Inc. In Equal Employment Opportunity Commission v. CVS Pharmacy, Inc., the EEOC...more
As we previously blogged about, the EEOC has gone on the offensive challenging employer severance agreements. In one such case, the EEOC attacked CVS Pharmacy Inc.’s standard release agreement which contained terms more...more
When CVS fired store manager Tonia Ramos in 2011, it offered her its standard severance agreement that included a broad release of waivable claims, including claims under Title VII, but explicitly preserving the right to...more
Last year, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission garnered significant criticism from employers when it sued CVS over its standard releases used in conjunction with reductions in force and similar employee terminations....more
During the last few years, the National Labor Relations Board (“NLRB”) has been aggressively reviewing employers’ confidentiality policies, as well as other work rules regarding, among other things, social media, use of the...more
The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (the “EEOC”) made headlines earlier this year by filing a lawsuit attacking CVS Pharmacy, Inc.’s standard severance agreement, which the EEOC argued unlawfully restricts former...more
2014 has been a notable year for the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. The agency has initiated historic litigation, issued significant new guidance and signaled increased scrutiny of background checks and...more
As we have blogged about before, the EEOC has said one of its priorities is to challenge separation agreements that, in its view, interfere with the ability of employees to file charges with the EEOC or participate in...more
Employers like separation agreements. Separation agreements, of course, are contracts that employees sign when their employment is terminated that allows them to be paid severance and in exchange they usually give up the...more
Last month, a federal judge in Illinois dismissed a lawsuit brought by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission contending that a standard release agreement used by the CVS drugstore chain violated the anti-retaliation...more
Most employers have separation agreement forms that have served them well over the years. The terms have become fairly standardized and, aside from the occasional tweak, they don’t change much and are rarely challenged. ...more
Last month, we reported that an Illinois district court judge threw out the EEOC’s controversial lawsuit against CVS seeking to invalidate its severance agreements. The judge there did so and promised to follow up with a...more
On October 7, 2014, District Judge John Darrah of the North District of Illinois dismissed the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s lawsuit against CVS Pharmacy. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission v. CVS Pharmacy,...more
As we reported earlier this year (EEOC Files Suit Over Separation Agreement Language), the Chicago District Office of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) filed suit against CVS Pharmacy alleging that the...more
On October 7th, a federal district judge granted summary judgment against the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) in its lawsuit against CVS. The EEOC had challenged the nation’s largest integrated provider of...more
The EEOC’s lawsuit against CVS, which alleged that the company’s severance agreements were impermissibly restrictive, has been dismissed, but not for the reasons employers would have hoped. EEOC v. CVS Pharmacy, Inc., No....more
In a closely watched ruling, an Illinois federal district court handed a victory to one particular employer, but ducked a broader ruling that would have provided general guidance to companies generally that are trying to...more
As we reported in February 2014, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission sued CVS Pharmacy in federal court in Chicago on a novel theory that the company’s standard separation agreement unlawfully deterred departing...more
Employers can begin to breathe a sigh of relief after a federal judge last week dismissed a lawsuit brought by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission against the CVS drug store chain. In the lawsuit, the EEOC took an...more
A federal court has tossed the EEOC’s controversial lawsuit against CVS seeking to invalidate its severance agreements. While the EEOC still has a similar lawsuit pending against another company in Colorado, employers can...more
As we noted earlier this year, the EEOC has begun filing legal challenges to relatively common provisions found in form severance agreements, based on the EEOC's belief that such language unlawfully interferes with employees'...more