The Americans with Disabilities Act requires employers to provide reasonable accommodations to employees with protected disabilities. Another part of the ADA requires employers to refrain from discriminating against disabled...more
11/6/2020
/ Adverse Employment Action ,
Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) ,
Anti-Discrimination Policies ,
Appeals ,
Disability Discrimination ,
Dismissals ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Employment Litigation ,
Reasonable Accommodation ,
Remand ,
Reversal
According to U.S. Department of Justice statistics, Black men in the U.S. are more likely to be arrested and have criminal convictions on their records than their white counterparts. Last week, a split Second Circuit Court of...more
9/28/2020
/ Appeals ,
Conditional Job Offers ,
Corporate Counsel ,
Criminal Records ,
Dismissals ,
Disparate Treatment ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) ,
Hiring & Firing ,
Job Applicants ,
Race Discrimination
Employers faced with escalating employee overtime costs may consider implementing an alternative pay plan called the fluctuating workweek (FWW). In short, in return for paying a guaranteed salary to non-exempt employees, FWW...more
In most situations, employers are not liable for civil claims relating to criminal conduct by their employees because such actions are deemed to be outside the course and scope of their employment. Plaintiffs can get around...more
In order to claim discrimination under the Americans with Disabilities Act, employees must demonstrate that they could perform the essential functions of the job but were denied a reasonable accommodation. Some employers...more
3/11/2020
/ Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) ,
Appeals ,
Corporate Counsel ,
Disability Discrimination ,
Dismissals ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Employment Litigation ,
Essential Functions ,
Interactive Process ,
Popular ,
Reasonable Accommodation ,
Reversal
Some of the most frequent questions we receive from employers involve managing the performance of employees with medical issues. While employers understand their nondiscrimination obligations under the Americans with...more
3/6/2020
/ Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) ,
Appeals ,
Best Management Practices ,
Corporate Counsel ,
Disability Discrimination ,
Discipline ,
Dismissals ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Employment Litigation ,
Poor Job Performance ,
Summary Judgment
Many written employment agreements contain automatic renewal provisions that apply at the end of the contract’s term if either party does not provide notice of intent not to renew. When an employment agreement is silent on...more
In recent years, a number of federal courts have drawn differing conclusions with regard to whether obesity is a protected disability under the Americans with Disabilities Act. While some courts have reached this conclusion,...more
2/12/2020
/ Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) ,
Appeals ,
Corporate Counsel ,
Disability ,
Disability Discrimination ,
Dismissals ,
Obesity ,
Remand ,
Reversal ,
State and Local Government ,
Summary Judgment ,
WA Supreme Court
From time to time, we encounter requests from employees for accommodations under the Americans with Disabilities Act that appear unrelated to the employee’s underlying medical condition. For example, an employee with a back...more
Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 provides specific time limitations for filing EEOC charges and subsequent lawsuits. What happens, however, if the employer and employee agree to shorten the period of time under which...more
Employees who transition genders may ask their employer and co-workers to begin addressing them with names and pronouns associated with that different gender. On September 17, a federal district court in Maryland (which,...more
The Americans with Disabilities Act not only provides protections for disabled persons but also those “regarded as” having a disability, even if they are healthy. On September 12, the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals (which...more
Of all the questions we receive from employers, those involving suspected abuse of intermittent family and medical leave remain among the most frustrating and difficult to address. While only a minority of employees on...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
9/6/2019
/ Appeals ,
Corporate Counsel ,
Dismissals ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Harassment ,
Hiring & Firing ,
Hostile Environment ,
Poor Job Performance ,
Race Discrimination ,
Reaffirmation ,
Safety Violations ,
Slurs ,
Summary Judgment ,
Supervisors ,
Title VII
Under Title VII, employers are vicariously liable for incidents of sexual harassment engaged in by supervisors. In its Faragher and Ellerth decisions, the U.S. Supreme Court acknowledged a limited defense to claims of...more
8/7/2019
/ Corporate Counsel ,
Dismissals ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Faragher/Ellerth defense ,
Managers ,
Risk Management ,
Sexual Harassment ,
Title VII ,
Vicarious Liability ,
Wal-Mart ,
Workplace Investigations
In its Cleveland v. Policy Mgmt. Syst. decision, the U.S. Supreme Court said that an application for Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) benefits does not automatically kill a plaintiff’s contemporaneous assertion...more
An African-American employee comes into work early one day, with plans to leave earlier than originally scheduled. When he is informed that his vehicle is being serviced and is not immediately available, he blows up at the...more
According to the Americans with Disabilities Act, employers may only require employees to submit to medical exams or inquiries when there is a business necessity for determining the employee’s ability to perform the essential...more
2/12/2019
/ Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) ,
Appeals ,
Corporate Counsel ,
Dismissals ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Employment Litigation ,
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) ,
Hiring & Firing ,
Medical Examinations ,
Reasonable Accommodation ,
Reversal
Job-protected leave continues to be the most common accommodation requested by employees under the Americans with Disabilities Act. For employers, the question remains at what point does the amount of work missed end the...more
In addition to OSHA rules, many safety-sensitive businesses use ANSI or other standards organizations’ guidelines to develop their safety programs. Earlier this month, the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed dismissal of...more
Most employers understand that with appropriate disclaimers, they have the right to monitor employee use of the company’s electronic communication systems. With that said, unhappy employees continue to attempt to use federal...more
Under Title VII, employers are generally strictly liable for harassing conduct by supervisors. In its Faragher and Ellerth decisions, the U.S. Supreme Court developed a limited defense for employers accused of supervisor...more
8/1/2018
/ Anti-Harassment Policies ,
Appeals ,
Dismissals ,
Employee Handbooks ,
Employee Training ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Harassment ,
Remand ,
Retaliation ,
Reversal ,
Sexual Harassment ,
Supervisors ,
Title VII
The Americans with Disabilities Act is not an affirmative action law, meaning that employers are not required to hire or continue the employment of disabled persons who cannot perform essential job functions after reasonable...more
When a current employee develops a disabling medical condition, employers are frequently faced with Americans with Disabilities Act accommodation requests that would fundamentally alter the way that the job has been...more
Like most states, the North Carolina Trade Secrets Protection Act prohibits individuals or businesses from misappropriating or misusing certain confidential business information belonging to someone else. However, not all...more