Employment Law This Week: Constructive Discharge Claims, Class Waivers, Hiring Bias, Electronic Record-Keeping Rule, Equal Pay
Over the past decade, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals (which includes North Carolina, South Carolina, and Virginia) has substantially lowered the bar for demonstrating racial harassment in cases where a racial...more
Employers in Ontario have been waiting for clarification on the interpretation of COVID-19 leave provisions throughout much of the pandemic. Employers had hoped that the Court of Appeal’s decision in Taylor v Hanley...more
On September 15, 2021, the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a district court’s grant of summary judgment in favor of an employer. In Brown v. Austin, the Tenth Circuit found that an employee’s telework, weekend work, and...more
Recently, the Louisiana Court of Appeal, First Circuit, in Thompson v. Cenac Towing Co., L.L.C., analyzed a trial court’s grant of summary judgment in a company’s favor after a noose-like rope was found hanging in a maritime...more
In McGuinty v. 1845035 Ontario Inc. (McGuinty Funeral Home), 2020 ONCA 816 (McGuinty), the Court of Appeal for Ontario upheld the Ontario Superior Court’s decision to award an employee one of the highest damage awards ever...more
In recent years, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals (which includes North Carolina and South Carolina) has lowered the bar for plaintiffs to take racial harassment claims to a jury trial when the alleged conduct involved use...more
The Appellate Division has stopped a former medical resident’s discrimination and constructive discharge claims from proceeding because the resident did not do everything in her power to remain employed. On August 2, 2019, in...more
Judge v. Shikellamy Sch. Dist., 905 F.3d 122 (3d Cir. 2018). When a public school district offers an employee a chance to resign in lieu of termination, courts will review five factors to determine whether the resignation...more
The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals recently reminded employers that, even under the more liberal standard for establishing a disability under the Americans with Disabilities Act Amendments Act of 2008 (ADAAA), an employee who...more
The U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey denied an employee’s request to reopen her case based on alleged changed attitudes “post-Weinstein.” The Court also denied the employer’s request for sanctions but...more
Employees and their medical providers continue to come up with creative requests for accommodation of medical conditions under the Americans with Disabilities Act. Last month in an unpublished decision, the Sixth Circuit...more
The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Louisiana’s grant of summary judgment under the Louisiana whistleblower law, Louisiana Revised Statutes section 23:967, in favor...more
This month’s key California employment law cases both involve jury trials of discrimination claims, and the extent to which the plaintiffs were able to recover attorney’s fees and damages....more
Last month, the Third Circuit Court of Appeals held that an employee’s protected activity must be the “but for” cause of an adverse action to support a claim for retaliation under the False Claims Act (“FCA”). The Court...more
On January 22, 2018, the Missouri Court of Appeals upheld a jury verdict awarding approximately $1.5 million in damages to a radiation oncologist after finding that she had been constructively and wrongfully terminated in...more
Employers understand their obligation to engage in an interactive process to address accommodation requests made by disabled employees. How long does the employer have to reach a conclusion with regard to the accommodation...more
Does an employee’s protection under the Pregnancy Discrimination Act (PDA) stop when the employee ceases to be pregnant? The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals was confronted with this question in Stephanie Hicks v. City of...more
The U.S. 4th Circuit Court of Appeals (whose rulings apply to all South Carolina employers) recently decided a religious accommodation case in which a jury awarded a former employee more than half a million dollars. The Equal...more
Employer Is Entitled To Recover $4 Million In Attorney's Fees From EEOC - CRST Van Expedited, Inc. v. EEOC, 578 U.S. ___, 136 S. Ct. 1642 (2016) - The EEOC filed suit against CRST (a trucking company) alleging...more
Federal law requires a governmental employee to file a constructive discharge claim with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission within 45 days of the “matter alleged to be discriminatory.” The vagueness of that phrase...more
Former sports columnist T.J. Simers sued the Los Angeles Times for age and disability discrimination, among other things, when he quit his job in 2013. The Times had allegedly demoted him (although with no cut in his salary...more
Employers that receive requests for accommodation made by a disabled employee must remain careful about making significant changes to that employee’s terms and conditions of employment prior to concluding review and...more
In Stack v Ajar-Tec Ltd [2015] EWCA Civ 46, the Court of Appeal considered whether a director-shareholder, who performed work for a company without pay, was an employee....more