On June 29, 2023, the United States Supreme Court issued a unanimous opinion in Groff v. DeJoy, Postmaster General, increasing the employer’s burden to prove an undue hardship defense from the previous de minimis standard to...more
On May 28, 2021, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) issued updated guidance for employers. This long-awaited guidance clarifies that employers can require COVID-19 vaccinations and even provide incentives...more
6/1/2021
/ Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) ,
Civil Rights Act ,
Confidential Information ,
Coronavirus/COVID-19 ,
Employer Mandates ,
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) ,
Incentives ,
New Guidance ,
Reasonable Accommodation ,
Title VII ,
Vaccinations
As businesses begin to reintegrate employees into their pre-pandemic workplaces, many of our clients have questions regarding return-to-work issues. In this edition of Funny You Should Ask, we address two questions many of...more
4/6/2021
/ Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) ,
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) ,
Coronavirus/COVID-19 ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Masks ,
Personal Protective Equipment ,
Re-Opening Guidelines ,
Reasonable Accommodation ,
Return-to-Work Agreements ,
Social Distancing ,
Vaccinations ,
Workplace Safety
UPDATE: President Trump signed the original relief bill into law on December 27, 2020. Employers can now continue to receive the federal tax credit for allowing employees to take unused FFCRA paid sick and family leave...more
As we discussed in previous posts, the Families First Coronavirus Response Act (FFCRA) requires private employers with less than 500 employees and certain public employers to provide employees with 80 hours of paid sick leave...more
As COVID-19 vaccination begins in the United States, employers should begin preparing to support vaccination and consider how workplaces will be impacted. There are still many unknowns, and plans will have to remain flexible....more
Widespread COVID-19 vaccination is considered critical for many employers to return employees to work safely and resume normal business operations in the future. As such, many employers have been asking whether they can...more
As we reported in our recent commentary, voters in five states in the 2020 general election passed initiatives to legalize marijuana usage. As the success of these ballot initiatives suggest, despite marijuana’s...more
As the 2020 general election approaches with many employees working remotely and participating on social media platforms, employers can anticipate that employees will engage in political speech and activity in the workplace....more
10/27/2020
/ Employer Rights ,
Harassment ,
Hatch Act ,
NLRA ,
NLRB ,
NLRB General Counsel ,
Political Debates ,
Political Speech ,
Remote Working ,
Social Media ,
Workplace Harassment Guidance
Key Points
•The ministerial exception protects religious employers from government interference in internal employment disputes involving the selection, supervision, and removal of individuals who play an important role...more
7/21/2020
/ Age Discrimination ,
Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) ,
Appeals ,
Disability Discrimination ,
Employment Discrimination ,
First Amendment ,
Freedom of Religion ,
Hiring & Firing ,
Ministerial Exception ,
Our Lady of Guadalupe School v Morrissey-Berru ,
Religious Schools ,
Religious Workers ,
Reversal ,
SCOTUS ,
Teachers ,
Title VII ,
Wrongful Termination
Key Points:
•The express terms of Title VII forbid employment decisions which take into account an individual’s sex.
•An employer violates Title VII when it intentionally relies in part on an individual employee’s sex...more
6/16/2020
/ Altitude Express Inc v Zarda ,
Bostock v Clayton County Georgia ,
Civil Rights Act ,
EEOC v RG & GR Harris Funeral Homes ,
Gender Identity ,
LGBTQ ,
SCOTUS ,
Sex Discrimination ,
Sexual Orientation ,
Sexual Orientation Discrimination ,
Title VII ,
Transgender
On June 3, 2019, the Supreme Court of the United States issued its opinion in Fort Bend County, Texas v. Davis, deciding whether the filing of a discrimination charge (a precondition commonly referred to as “administrative...more
6/5/2019
/ Affirmative Defenses ,
Amended Complaints ,
Appeals ,
Charge-Filing Preconditions ,
Civil Rights Act ,
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) ,
Forfeiture ,
Fort Bend County Texas v Davis ,
Jurisdictional Requirements ,
Mandatory Claim-Processing Rules ,
Reaffirmation ,
Reasonable Accommodation ,
Religious Discrimination ,
Retaliation ,
Reversal ,
SCOTUS ,
Time-Barred Claims ,
Title VII ,
Waiver Rule ,
Wrongful Termination