The Labor Law Insider | Offensive Speech in the Workplace - Part II: Drawing the Line
On October 6, 2020, in Bennett v. Metropolitan Government of Nashville, No. 19-5818, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit reversed a district court’s decision in favor of a public employee who claimed that the city...more
Fresh off of a webinar I co-hosted for the Legal Marketing Association last week titled “Personal Branding In The Age of Social & Digital Media,” where Clayton Dodds and I scratched the surface of how to define your personal...more
B.L. by Levy v. Mahanoy Area School District (“Levy”), Case No. 3:17-CV-1734, 2017 WL 4418290 (M.D. Pa. Oct. 5, 2017). District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania grants cheerleader’s Motion for Preliminary...more
The Supreme Court of Canada recently confirmed the availability of a novel form of worldwide injunction whereby Google, a non-party to the litigation, was required to block worldwide access to websites operated by a...more
In a case at the edges of protected employee conduct during a union organizing drive, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals last week found that an employee’s expletive-laden Facebook post cursing out his boss—and his boss’s...more
Many people have fanaticized about telling their boss what they really think about him or her. Fortunately, most employees have the good sense not to write down what they are thinking about their employer....more
In National Labor Relations Board v. Pier Sixty, LLC, No. 15-1841 (April 21, 2017), the Second Circuit upheld the National Labor Relations Board’s (NLRB) finding that an employee’s Facebook post, although “vulgar and...more
On Friday, April 21, 2017 a Second Circuit Court of Appeals panel affirmed a National Labor Relations Board ruling that a catering company server was wrongfully terminated for making an obscene and vicious Facebook post that...more
A politically divided nation can mean a politically divided workplace. While employers generally hesitate to react to employees’ expression of political views, some comments viewed as extreme, threatening or inconsistent with...more
Many people enjoy spouting off what they view as 140-character tidbits of wisdom on the social media platform Twitter. But recently several individuals have found themselves in trouble with their employers (read: former...more
The internet has generated countless new ways to communicate and share thinking. Some posted information is negative, which can still be useful when messages are truthful, in good taste, and constructive. But some negative...more
Maybe not, according to a recently published NLRB decision. In Pier Sixty LLC, a majority of a three-member NLRB panel affirmed an ALJ’s decision that the employer violated Section 8(a)(1) and (3) of the National Labor...more
After watching the firing of the digital communications manager for the Houston Rockets during their run through the playoffs (read the story here in the Houston Chronicle). I figured it would be a good time to revisit the...more
The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) determined that Pier Sixty LLC, a New York catering service, violated federal labor law by firing an employee server after he posted a Facebook message protesting supervisory abuse...more
For decades, the National Labor Relations Board has recognized boundaries on employees’ rights to engage in activity protected under federal labor laws. While employees have been granted leeway to engage in heated or...more
A federal court in Oklahoma recently denied summary judgment to Northeastern State University, finding that a professor’s discrimination and retaliation claims, among others, could proceed to trial. The professor, Dr. Leslie...more
Most of the case law in the UK on dismissals related to employees' social media activity has been at employment tribunal level and therefore the recent decision of the Employment Appeal Tribunal (“EAT”) in Game Retail v Laws...more