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
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
Last week, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) and the United States Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division (DOL) issued a memorandum of understanding (MOU) that announced they are partnering for the...more
If you are an employer covered by the federal Fifth Circuit (Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi), you are probably familiar with the “ultimate employment decision” standard: In determining whether an employee suffered an...more
Recently the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) issued a final rule that provides, among many other things (the rule is more than 700 pages long), (1) an update to the formula DOL uses to set “prevailing wages” under the...more
8/21/2023
/ Construction Industry ,
Construction Project ,
Davis-Bacon Act ,
Department of Labor (DOL) ,
Enforcement ,
Federal Contractors ,
Final Rules ,
Fringe Benefits ,
Prevailing Wages ,
Public Works ,
Retaliation ,
Subcontractors
No-fault attendance policies may be on a watchlist for the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
A recent matter before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, EEOC v. Eberspaecher North America Inc.,...more
Employment lawyers always win war story contests at cocktail parties. Facts like the ones in Davis v. ULP provide ample fodder for those type of conversations.
Performance Problems or Age Discrimination?
The...more
There has been a lot of discussion over the last few years about the joint employer test for liability under employment statutes. Whether it be Uber drivers in California or the back and forth over the Trump administration’s...more
Law and Practice Chambers -
The 2020 Chambers US Regional Employment Guide features guidance on employment law across 14 states and includes a unique state comparison tool for readers. The guide provides expert legal...more
10/29/2021
/ Alabama ,
Black Lives Matter ,
Compensation & Benefits ,
Coronavirus/COVID-19 ,
Discrimination ,
Dispute Resolution ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Employer Mandates ,
Gig Economy ,
Harassment ,
Health and Safety ,
Immigration ,
Interviews ,
NLRB ,
OSHA ,
Privacy Laws ,
Public Health Emergency ,
Restrictive Covenants ,
Retaliation ,
Sexual Harassment ,
State and Local Government ,
Technology ,
Termination ,
Unions ,
Vaccinations ,
Wage and Hour ,
Workplace Safety
In another chapter in litigation alliteration, in Maner v. Dignity Health, f/k/a Catholic Healthcare West, the Ninth Circuit held that a male employee’s theory that his supervisor’s long-term romantic relationship with a...more
9/9/2021
/ Discrimination ,
Employees ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Employment Litigation ,
Employment Policies ,
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) ,
Hiring & Firing ,
Preferred Treatment ,
Retaliation ,
Sex Discrimination ,
Summary Judgment ,
Termination ,
Title VII ,
Workplace Romances
Do you typically include a “no rehire” clause in your settlements with soon to be former employees? How about agreements with other companies that you will not “poach” each other’s employees? If your answer to either of those...more
The EEOC has released its annual report on discrimination charges filed across the country for the fiscal year 2020. So, how does the data line up with the 2019 data...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
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 EEOC has released its annual report on the number of discrimination charges filed across the country. As has been seen over the last few years, the total number of charges continued to decline –72,675 in 2019 as opposed...more
Various federal statutes contain whistleblower provisions that protect employees who raise or report concerns that range from workplace safety, securities laws violation, or false claims submitted to the federal government....more
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
If your employee sues you for discrimination, they don’t get to look at how the decision-makers treated everyone else, do they? Well, in Cruz vs. US Homeland Security, the D.C. Court of Appeals says yes they do. Although the...more
The era of #MeToo has caused employers to hyper-focus on harassment claims. They have fine-tuned their policies, investigated claims more carefully, and acted swiftly and sometimes even in a draconian fashion upon finding any...more
What constitutes a racially hostile work environment? Is one really bad comment specifically aimed at the plaintiff sufficient or do you need a sustained series of racial comments? What if you have both but no evidence that...more
10/4/2018
/ Appeals ,
Corporate Counsel ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Employment Litigation ,
Hiring & Firing ,
Hostile Environment ,
Performance Reviews ,
Poor Job Performance ,
Race Discrimination ,
Racial Bias ,
Retaliation ,
Summary Judgment
Lest you think that no one can win a hostile work environment claim, we have some positive news from the Second Circuit. In Russell v. New York University, et al., the court issued a summary order (which does not have...more
6/28/2018
/ Age Discrimination ,
Anti-Harassment Policies ,
Complaint Procedures ,
Employment Policies ,
Gender Discrimination ,
Harassment ,
Hostile Environment ,
Internal Investigations ,
Policies and Procedures ,
Popular ,
Religious Discrimination ,
Retaliation ,
Sexual Orientation Discrimination ,
Summary Judgment
In this #MeToo era, employers are, understandably, a little sensitive when someone raises a claim of harassment. Even with the heightened sense of peril, companies should remember that if they are doing the right thing—having...more
I have told clients for years that they ignore claims based on sexual orientation at their peril, and another court is backing me up. An Arizona federal district court just ordered a wine bar to pay real money ($100,000) to...more
4/10/2018
/ Anti-Harassment Policies ,
Default Judgment ,
EEO ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) ,
Hiring & Firing ,
Injunctive Relief ,
Retaliation ,
Sexual Harassment ,
Sexual Orientation Discrimination ,
Title VII
Ever wonder why the severance agreement that I (or your other favorite employment lawyer) send you says “nothing in this Agreement prevents Employee from filing a charge with the EEOC” (or words to that effect)? I mean, isn’t...more
2/7/2018
/ Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) ,
Disability Discrimination ,
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) ,
Former Employee ,
Hiring & Firing ,
Retaliation ,
Section 503 ,
Section 706 ,
Severance Agreements ,
Severance Pay ,
Strategic Enforcement Plan ,
Title VII
The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s fiscal year ended on Sept. 30, 2017 and it has released its yearly "Performance and Accountability Report." Although this is a look back, it provides insight on what is...more
12/27/2017
/ Age Discrimination ,
Annual Reports ,
Disability Discrimination ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Employment Discrimination ,
Employment Litigation ,
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) ,
Genetic Discrimination ,
Harassment ,
Hiring & Firing ,
Mediation ,
National Origin Discrimination ,
Race Discrimination ,
Reasonable Accommodation ,
Regulatory Violations ,
Religious Discrimination ,
Retaliation ,
Sex Discrimination