Social Media + Employees = Hot Mess
#BigIdeas2020: NLRB’s Actions Impact Employers in 2020 - Employment Law This Week® - Trending News
This week, the Court addresses whether the dismissal of a volunteer member of a municipal advisory board implicates the First Amendment and considers a challenge to zoning ordinances designed to limit sober living homes. ...more
While the presidential election may be in the past, conversations on political and social issues are not. As the new Presidential Administration takes the helm, the pandemic continues, and significant political division...more
On October 29, 2020, the National Urban League and the National Fair Housing Alliance (represented by the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund, Inc.) filed a complaint challenging the constitutionality of Executive Order...more
In a year of extraordinary events, this election has been more divisive and controversial than any other in recent history. Many employers are grappling with how they should manage political expression in the workplace. An...more
Seyfarth Synopsis: In a tumultuous year full of social unrest, a pandemic, and a Presidential election, it is no wonder employers find themselves grappling with how—and whether—to regulate politics in the workplace. Options...more
With election season underway, employers are considering how to address employees discussing politics and expressing their political beliefs in the workplace. Managing these issues can create significant legal and employee...more
Can you discipline or fire an employee because of his or her social media posts? Do employees have a constitutional right to say whatever they want online or at a protest? What blowback might companies face due to negative...more
Many people have commented on social media regarding the anti-racist movement that has been gaining strength in the wake of police officers killings around the country. Unfortunately, some of these posts are inflammatory,...more
Social and traditional media has been buzzing with reports that healthcare providers – from nurses to physicians – are being discharged because they have publicly shared negative frontline experiences treating COVID-19...more
On December 17, 2019, in a 3-1 decision split along party lines, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) restored to employers the right to restrict employees from using company email systems for nonbusiness purposes. The...more
On December 17, 2019, the National Labor Relations Board (“Board”) ruled that an employer’s rule prohibiting use of its email system for nonbusiness purposes did not violate employees’ rights under the National Labor...more
The California Court of Appeal affirmed dismissal of a former freelancer’s defamation and employment-related claims against the Times. Frederick Theodore Rall III, a political cartoonist and blogger for the paper, brought...more
Seyfarth Synopsis: Employees’ use of their personal social media accounts in ways that could impact an employer’s business present challenges to employers....more
It is October in an election year, and political tensions are running high. If political discourse in your place of business has been heated, it may be a good time for a refresher on laws governing what private employers may...more
How and where public officials share information is critical to whether the dissemination is “protected activity” under California’s anti-Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation statute, an appellate court has found....more
B.L. by Levy v. Mahanoy Area School District (“Levy”), Case No. 3:17-CV-1734, 2017 WL 4418290 (M.D. Pa. Oct. 5, 2017). District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania grants cheerleader’s Motion for Preliminary...more
In Reichenbach v. Haydock, 92 Mass.App.Ct. 567 (2017), the Massachusetts Appeals Court clarified the evolving legal framework used to determine whether a case should be dismissed under G.L. c. 231, § 59H, the anti-Strategic...more
The Fifth Circuit has issued another opinion in the continuing saga of Jackson State University and its past athletic director, Dr. Vivian Fuller—this one about retaliation against a witness. To refresh everyone’s memory: A...more
Recent events have underscored the difficulties employers face in managing diverse workforces in which employees hold a wide-range of political perspectives. The mere discussion of the news of the day can create divisive...more
Dear Littler: I saw one of my employees on the local news the other night participating in a political rally over the weekend. We try to maintain a tension-free workplace. Can I discipline him for this conduct? Can I at least...more
Supreme Court Decides Case on Protected Political Activity in Public Employment - Some of us may have had enough of all things election by now. But the United States Supreme Court decided a case last April that...more
In Baral v. Schnitt, the California Supreme Court addressed a question that has divided California appellate courts for more than a decade: whether a special motion to strike under California’s anti-SLAPP statute (C.C.P....more
The California Supreme Court resolved a decade-long conflict among lower appellate courts in its watershed opinion Baral v. Schnitt, Case No. S225090, 2016 WL 4074081, *1 (Cal. Sup. Ct. Aug. 1, 2016). Now, courts must allow a...more
Plaintiff Paul Brodeur, a well-known author, filed suit in California state court against the producers and distributors of the motion picture American Hustle, asserting claims for defamation, slander, and false light. The...more
The Texas Anti-SLAPP law is known as the Texas Citizens Participation Act (the “TCPA” found at Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code at § 27.001, et seq.). “If a legal action is based on, relates to, or is in response to a party’s...more