What's the Tea in L&E? "Passive" Harassment: When Does Workplace Decor Contribute to a Hostile Environment?
What's the Tea in L&E? Truth Hurts or Rumors? Lizzo’s Harassment Allegations Serve As A Good Reminder
Middle East Conflict Impact on the Healthcare Workplace: An HR Perspective
The Labor Law Insider - Pause Before You Discipline: NLRB Turns Against Civility in Lion Elastomers Decision
Labor & Employment Law: Vermont and Federal Legislative Update
Politics at Work
Employment Law Now: III-47 - New York, New World
III-41- Things That Make You Go “Hmmm” in Employment Law
Ann Curry’s Departure from the Today Show Presents a Number of Lessons for Employers
If an employer or coworker persistently uses a transgender worker’s wrong name or identified pronoun, can that constitute a hostile work environment in violation of Title VII? In Copeland v. Georgia Department of Corrections,...more
We often hear claims from employees who threaten to sue their employer for creating a “hostile work environment.” When we dig into the complaints, often the employee is alleging that their manager is mean or unfair to them,...more
Under Title VII, an employer may be liable for sexual harassment by one co-worker of another if it knew or should have known of the conduct and took no action. According to a recent decision from the Eighth Circuit Court of...more
Religious schools expressed relief when the United States Supreme Court expanded the application of the ministerial exception in July 2020 in the combined cases of Our Lady of Guadalupe School v. Morrisey-Berru and St. James...more
Downs Rachlin Martin labor and employment attorneys Amy Resnick and Andrea Wright highlight key Vermont and Federal legislative updates from 2020 that impact HR professionals. They walk through: Vermont minimum wage...more
In recent years, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals (which includes North Carolina, South Carolina, and Virginia) has substantially lowered the legal bar for plaintiffs to demonstrate a hostile work environment based on...more
Seyfarth Synopsis: The Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that a manager’s behavior toward an employee was “reprehensible and improper,” but did not rise to the level of a hostile work environment under Title VII, and...more
In Allen v. Ambu-Stat, LLC, No. 18-10640 (January 16, 2020), the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit affirmed a Georgia district court’s dismissal of a former employee’s sexual harassment claim and delivered a...more
Seyfarth Synopsis: After over a decade of litigation between the EEOC and trucking company CRST Van Expedited, the Eighth Circuit recently affirmed a federal district court’s order requiring the EEOC to pay $3.3 million in...more
In recent years, a number of federal appellant courts, including the Fourth Circuit, have issued opinions finding that a single use of a racial slur can be enough to constitute a hostile and offensive working environment...more
The Fourth Circuit’s recent decision in Evangeline Parker v. Reema Consulting Services, Incorporated, 915 F.3d 297 (4th Cir. 2019) grabbed headlines for its controversial ruling that workplace gossip can support a sex...more
One of the major trends in recent years in employment discrimination law has been the lowering of the standard required for a plaintiff to demonstrate a hostile and offensive working environment based on race or sex. Federal...more
Successful women have long been the subject of rumors that promotions or other career advancements were the result of their “sleeping their way to the top.” Earlier this month, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals (which...more
This month’s key employment law cases address the religious organization exemption under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act and arbitration agreements....more
“Claims of sexual harassment typically involve the behavior of fellow employees. But not always,” said a federal appeals court in Gardner v. CLC of Pascagoula, LLC. The case shows employers must take employee complaints of...more
On March 6, 2019, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit decided Fox v. Costco Wholesale Corporation, eliminating any uncertainty concerning whether an employee can assert a hostile work environment claim under the...more
Over the past decade, federal courts have gradually reduced the evidentiary burden necessary for a plaintiff to reach a jury trial on claims involving sexual or racial harassment. The relevant legal standard calls for the...more
Employers may be liable to their employees for harassment by non-employees under Title VII. Courts have found liability for this so-called “third-party harassment” in some of the following fact-specific contexts: waitresses...more
Over the past decade federal courts have demonstrated a decreasing willingness to tolerate the use of racist language in the workplace. In repeated circumstances, courts have found even a single use of a racial slur...more
Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 protects employees from workplace harassment. As most employers know, these protections apply not only to behavior by co-workers and supervisors but also to harassment by customers,...more
Employment lawyers and most HR professionals are familiar with the Faragher-Ellerth defense to a claim of sexual harassment. In short, if an employer can show that (1) it exercised reasonable care to prevent and correct...more
In its 1998 Oncale decision, the U.S. Supreme Court recognized that same-sex sexual harassment can violate Title VII’s gender discrimination prohibitions. However, the court noted that in order to demonstrate violation of the...more
“Claims of sexual harassment typically involve the behavior of fellow employees. But not always.” So begins a recent opinion from the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals that illustrates the dangers of failing to take an employee’s...more
Over the past several years, we have reported an increasing number of federal appeals court decisions that have characterized even single instances of certain racial slurs as sufficient to constitute hostile environment...more
Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits not only discrimination in employment on the basis of certain protected categories such as race, but also retaliation against an employee who opposes such discrimination....more