Why the Increase in Demeaning Women Online Matters for Your Workplace: What's the Tea in L&E?
What's the Tea in L&E? "Passive" Harassment: When Does Workplace Decor Contribute to a Hostile Environment?
What's the Tea in L&E? Truth Hurts or Rumors? Lizzo’s Harassment Allegations Serve As A Good Reminder
Middle East Conflict Impact on the Healthcare Workplace: An HR Perspective
The Labor Law Insider - Pause Before You Discipline: NLRB Turns Against Civility in Lion Elastomers Decision
Labor & Employment Law: Vermont and Federal Legislative Update
Politics at Work
Employment Law Now: III-47 - New York, New World
III-41- Things That Make You Go “Hmmm” in Employment Law
Ann Curry’s Departure from the Today Show Presents a Number of Lessons for Employers
Key Takeaways - - Employers have recently prevailed in several cases across the country in which plaintiffs attacked diversity training and other DEI-related initiatives in the workplace. Decisions have indicated that many...more
Summary: Courts must consider allegations of a racially hostile workplace “from the perspective of a reasonable person belonging to the racial or ethnic group of the plaintiff.” Under this framework, “a single racial epithet...more
This Littler Lightbulb highlights some of the more significant employment law developments at the U.S. Supreme Court and federal courts of appeal in the last month....more
Last week, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals rejected claims from a university professor that she had been subjected to a series of retaliatory acts in the two- and one-half year period following her filing an Equal...more
We often hear claims from employees who threaten to sue their employer for creating a “hostile work environment.” When we dig into the complaints, often the employee is alleging that their manager is mean or unfair to them,...more
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit has expanded its view of what a hostile work environment looks like and lowered the bar in terms of what a plaintiff must show to sufficiently allege a race-based hostile work...more
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
Most employers are aware that a supervisor’s or co-worker’s use of the N-word or similar racial epithets in the workplace can serve as the basis for a claim of racial harassment. What happens, however, when the slurs are...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 recent years, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals (which includes North Carolina, South Carolina, and Virginia) has substantially lowered the legal bar for plaintiffs to demonstrate a hostile work environment based on...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
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
The New Jersey Appellate Division in Adel Mansour v. Brooklake Club Corporation, Inc., d/b/a Brooklake Country Club, A-2472-17T1 (App. Div. July 10, 2019) recently considered a hostile work environment claim by an Egyptian...more
One of the major trends in recent years in employment discrimination law has been the lowering of the standard required for a plaintiff to demonstrate a hostile and offensive working environment based on race or sex. Federal...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
Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits not only discrimination in employment on the basis of certain protected categories such as race, but also retaliation against an employee who opposes such discrimination....more
Victoria Zetwick, a county correctional officer, alleged that the county sheriff created a sexually hostile environment in violation of Title VII and the California Fair Employment and Housing Act by, among other things,...more
Supreme Court Decision Impacts Potential Emotional Distress Damages - On September 19, 2016, the New Jersey Supreme Court upheld a jury’s award of $1.4 million in emotional distress damages to two Hispanic brothers who...more
The federal appeals court that covers Oklahoma recently ruled in favor of Dillon Companies, Inc., a Kansas corporation that does business as King Soopers, in a lawsuit filed by a former grocery store employee who claimed he...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
The Second Circuit Court of Appeals recently remanded a former employee’s racial discrimination lawsuit brought under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. In Littlejohn v. City of New York, No. 14-1395 (August 3, 2015),...more
As a major national company learned recently, employers cannot shirk their obligations to investigate employee complaints of a hostile work environment simply because the identity of the harasser is unknown. Failure to...more
For the second time, the Fourth Circuit has determined that African-American employees at a South Carolina steel plant are entitled to Rule 23 class certification. In Brown v. Nucor Corporation and Nucor Steel-Berkeley,...more
Despite consistent direction from the United States Supreme Court that courts should look at "all the circumstances" in determining whether a workplace environment is sufficiently hostile or abusive to give rise to an...more
For years, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals (which includes North Carolina and South Carolina) set a high bar for plaintiffs suing for workplace harassment. The court rejected multiple claims involving obnoxious and crude...more