Can a news organization avoid a discrimination claim by arguing that it was exercising its First Amendment right to choose who writes the news?
That’s the question that the California courts have been grappling with in...more
2/7/2020
/ ADEA ,
Age Discrimination ,
Anti-SLAPP ,
Associational Retaliation ,
CA Supreme Court ,
Cable Television Providers ,
Cause of Action Accrual ,
CNN ,
Defamation ,
Disability Discrimination ,
First Amendment ,
Hiring & Firing ,
News Stories ,
Plagiarism ,
Race Discrimination ,
Retaliation ,
Wrongful Termination
Under the Family Medical Leave Act (“FMLA”), employers are required to provide 12 weeks of unpaid leave to employees with certain family or medical issues. These issues include attending to serious health conditions that make...more
10/11/2018
/ Age Discrimination ,
Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) ,
Disability Discrimination ,
Employee Rights ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Employment Policies ,
Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) ,
Hiring & Firing ,
Judgment on the Pleadings ,
Medical Leave ,
Motion for Judgment ,
Resignation ,
Unpaid Leave ,
Wrongful Termination
On May 29, Roseanne Barr posted a tweet comparing former Obama adviser Valerie Jarrett to an ape. ABC’s reaction was swift and decisive: it fired Barr and cancelled her show.
ABC’s decision led to pontification from...more
6/5/2018
/ Employer Liability Issues ,
First Amendment ,
Free Speech ,
Hiring & Firing ,
Popular ,
Private Sector ,
Protected Concerted Activity ,
Racist Remarks ,
Social Media ,
Social Media Policy ,
Title VII ,
Twitter ,
Wrongful Termination
When Congress passed the Dodd-Frank Act in 2010, it bolstered protections for whistleblowers who report certain kinds of misconduct, such as violations of securities law. At the time, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act already provided...more
12/1/2017
/ Anti-Retaliation Provisions ,
Department of Labor (DOL) ,
Digital Realty Trust Inc v Somers ,
Dodd-Frank ,
Internal Reporting ,
Retaliation ,
Sarbanes-Oxley ,
SCOTUS ,
Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) ,
Whistleblowers ,
Wrongful Termination
Ghosts, ghouls, and ghastly liability; the last is certainly enough to spook any employer. For this Halloween, we take a trip down Elm Street to revisit the most startling nightmares we’ve ever covered....more
10/31/2017
/ Damages ,
Disability Discrimination ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Halloween ,
Hiring & Firing ,
Medical Leave ,
Pretext ,
Punitive Damages ,
Teachers ,
Whistleblowers ,
Wrongful Termination
In our last post, we detailed how Sanford Wadler, the former general counsel of Bio-Rad Laboratories, won a $14.5 million verdict against Bio-Rad.
Before Wadler could get to a jury, however, he had to surmount a...more
3/10/2017
/ Administrative Proceedings ,
Attorney-Client Privilege ,
Bio-Rad Laboratories ,
Confidential Information ,
Crime-Fraud Exception ,
Federal v State Law Application ,
Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) ,
Hiring & Firing ,
Legal Ethics ,
Motion to Exclude ,
Privilege Waivers ,
Retaliation ,
Sarbanes-Oxley ,
State Law Claims ,
Whistleblowers ,
White Collar Crimes ,
Wrongful Termination
Companies entrust their in-house attorneys with sensitive and confidential information in order to obtain legal advice on important matters. Thus, when an in-house attorney turns on his or her employer, the repercussions can...more
It’s been a tough few months for Baylor football and its former coach Art Briles. Baylor fired Briles in May of this year, after an outside law firm investigated the school’s response to alleged sexual assaults by football...more
When an employee brings a lawsuit alleging that his employer retaliated or discriminated against him, courts typically assess the claim by using a burden-shifting approach. Under this approach, after the employer offers a...more
When Congress passed the Sarbanes-Oxley and Dodd-Frank Acts, it included protections for employees who blow the whistle on wrongdoing by their employers. However, those whistleblower protections don’t apply to every report of...more
9/30/2016
/ Amended Complaints ,
Auditors ,
Corporate Misconduct ,
Dodd-Frank ,
Failure To State A Claim ,
Lack of Specificity ,
Motion to Amend ,
Sarbanes-Oxley ,
Whistleblower Protection Policies ,
Whistleblowers ,
Wrongful Termination