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
5/9/2024
/ Appeals ,
Bostock v Clayton County Georgia ,
Corporate Counsel ,
Discrimination ,
Employees ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Employment Litigation ,
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) ,
Gender Identity ,
Harassment ,
Hostile Environment ,
Remand ,
Retaliation ,
SCOTUS ,
Summary Judgment ,
Title VII ,
Transgender ,
Vacated
If an individual’s disability causes involuntary racist or profane utterances, what would a reasonable accommodation under the ADA look like? In Cooper v. Dolgencorp, LLC, the Sixth Circuit faced just such an inquiry....more
Changes in supervision may result in fresh ways of doing things. Certain rules that were never fully enforced may now come to the forefront. Can a new supervisor’s radical change in a long-term employee’s performance rating...more
Does the fact that an individual is disabled automatically make him a “qualified individual with a disability” under Title I of the ADA? In Stanley v. City of Sanford, Florida, the Eleventh Circuit said no....more
10/20/2023
/ Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) ,
Anti-Retaliation Provisions ,
Corporate Counsel ,
Disability Discrimination ,
Employee Benefits ,
Employees ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Retaliation ,
Retirement ,
Title I ,
Title VII
Your employee requests a reasonable accommodation under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) but you refuse to grant it. If the employee continues to perform their job, can the employee still sue you for refusing the...more
5/31/2023
/ Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) ,
Appeals ,
Compensation ,
Corporate Counsel ,
Disability ,
Employee Training ,
Employees ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Employment Litigation ,
Failure to Accommodate ,
Hiring & Firing ,
Interpreters ,
Reasonable Accommodation ,
Reversal
Can you require your workers to arbitrate claims? What if they work in interstate commerce? Recently several courts have addressed the scope of the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA) and when it applies to arbitration agreements...more
If you take on a federal contract, does that make you a state actor? No, according to a unanimous Sixth Circuit panel in Ciraci v. J.M. Smucker Company.
During World War II, the Army included Smucker’s apple butter in its...more
3/21/2023
/ Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) ,
Class Action ,
Constitutional Challenges ,
Coronavirus/COVID-19 ,
Corporate Counsel ,
Employees ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Employer Mandates ,
Federal Contractors ,
First Amendment ,
Free Exercise Clause ,
GINA ,
Religious Accommodation ,
Religious Exemption ,
Smuckers ,
Title VII ,
Vaccinations
Employers sometimes face difficult decisions after learning of an employee’s disability. What if you learn of a disability after ongoing repeated employment deficiencies or even after a disciplinary or discharge decision...more
2/21/2023
/ Absenteeism ,
Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) ,
Appeals ,
Corporate Counsel ,
Disability Discrimination ,
Disclosure Requirements ,
Employees ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Employment Litigation ,
Employment Policies ,
Failure to Accommodate ,
Failure to Notify ,
Hiring & Firing ,
Termination
Most of us know that when an employee or visitor to a place of public accommodation requests a reasonable accommodation, the ADA requires an interactive process to make an individualized determination. But what about a...more
2/16/2023
/ Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) ,
Corporate Counsel ,
Disability Discrimination ,
Dog-Friendly Workplace ,
Employees ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Employment Policies ,
Health and Safety ,
Healthcare ,
Hospitals ,
Nursing Homes ,
Reasonable Accommodation ,
Service Animals
Do you have to pay an employee on military leave? Generally, you only have to pay for military leave if you pay employees on “comparable” leaves. So what is a comparable leave? In Clarkson v. Alaska Airlines, Inc., the Ninth...more
2/15/2023
/ Corporate Counsel ,
Employee Benefits ,
Employee Rights ,
Employees ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Employment Discrimination ,
Employment Policies ,
Military Leave ,
Military Service Members ,
USERRA ,
Wage and Hour
In Glacier Northwest, Inc. v. Int’l Brotherhood of Teamsters Local Union 174, the Washington Supreme Court addressed the issue of whether a union is responsible for property damage incident to a strike. How does that issue...more
An employer establishes a weekend work policy where only male employees can take both days off, and female employees can only take one weekend day off. Sounds like gender discrimination maybe? Well, in Hamilton, et al. v....more
If a letter from the EEOC is in your virtual mailbox but you never open it, have you received it? Most of us are familiar with the requirement that a claimant who files an EEOC charge has 90 days to file a lawsuit after...more
The Wage and Hour Division of the Department of Labor unveiled a new program, “Essential Workers—Essential Protections,” that focuses on making sure employers comply with overtime and other wage requirements for workers on...more
Retaliation claims in employment litigation have been on the rise for years. The typical scenario has an employee reporting some sort of alleged discriminatory act, either against them or a coworker, followed by the employer...more
How long do you have to reinstate an employee following military leave? In Harwood v. American Airlines, the Fourth Circuit found that a delay of six or eight weeks was too long. The Uniformed Services Employment and...more
In hiring employees, can you just give them a salary bump or must you look at their soon-to-be coworkers to decide the correct amount? This is a hotly debated issue right now, and, as with many things, it depends on where you...more
The Department of Labor now has issued guidance, questions and answers, and a poster for those employers covered by the recently enacted Families First Coronavirus Response Act (FFCRA)...more
A February 2020 jury verdict against county music star Martina McBride’s production company highlights – albeit indirectly – the perils of unpaid internship programs and the issues they can cause under the Fair Labor...more
2/27/2020
/ Compensatory Damages ,
Corporate Counsel ,
Department of Labor (DOL) ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Employment Litigation ,
Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) ,
Internships ,
Jury Verdicts ,
Motion for Summary Judgment ,
Multi-Factor Test ,
Primary Beneficiary Test ,
Retaliation ,
Unpaid Interns ,
Wage and Hour ,
Whistleblowers
The Department of Labor recently issued a final rule about how to calculate an employee’s regular rate of pay for overtime purposes under the Fair Labor Standards Act. As everyone knows, under the FLSA you have to pay...more
1/13/2020
/ Compensation & Benefits ,
Corporate Counsel ,
Department of Labor (DOL) ,
Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) ,
Federal Labor Laws ,
Final Rules ,
Labor Regulations ,
New Rules ,
Over-Time ,
Rate of Pay ,
Wage and Hour
The sometimes agonizingly slow Equal Employment Opportunity Commission is trying to be more efficient. According to the latest Agency Financial Report, in fiscal year 2019 the EEOC reduced the level of pending private sector...more
When, if ever, is swearing at your supervisor or coworkers a federally protected activity? The National Labor Relations Board (Board) currently is reconsidering what constitutes protected activity under the National Labor...more
Employers who seek to sponsor foreign workers for cap-subject H-1B visas in 2020 will likely see a big change in the process – the use of an electronic pre-registration system that many believe will improve efficiency and...more
11/15/2019
/ Corporate Counsel ,
Electronic Filing ,
Filing Requirements ,
Foreign Workers ,
H-1B ,
Highly-Skilled Workers Visa ,
Hiring & Firing ,
Immigrants ,
Lottery ,
USCIS ,
Visa Caps ,
Visas
In an important wage-and-hour decision for franchisors, Salazar, et al. v. the McDonald’s Corp., et al., the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that employees of one of the hamburger giant’s California-based franchisees...more
10/2/2019
/ Class Action ,
Corporate Counsel ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Employment Litigation ,
Fast-Food Industry ,
Franchises ,
Franchisors ,
Joint Employers ,
McDonalds ,
State Labor Laws ,
Summary Judgment ,
Wage and Hour
If you want to avoid potential liability from a former employee, remember a key maxim: Stick to your story about why you made the employment decision. If an employer shifts rationales for its decision or tries to pile on by...more
9/10/2019
/ Corporate Counsel ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Employment Litigation ,
Hiring & Firing ,
Human Resources Professionals ,
Jury Trial ,
Motion for Summary Judgment ,
Piling-On ,
Pregnancy Discrimination ,
Retaliation ,
Summary Judgment ,
Termination