Social Media + Employees = Hot Mess
#BigIdeas2020: NLRB’s Actions Impact Employers in 2020 - Employment Law This Week® - Trending News
“Third party” or “associational” retaliation is reprisal taken by an employer against someone other than the person who engaged in “protected conduct.” In 2011, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Title VII’s anti-retaliation...more
In Johnson v. Global Language Center, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed a district court's decision to grant summary judgment in favor of an employer in a Title VII retaliation claim, where the “protected activity”...more
A recent Seventh Circuit decision interpreting Illinois law affirmed the district court’s ruling that an employee’s refusal to engage in activity illegal in New York, but not in Illinois, was neither protected under the...more
A recent case out of the Sixth Circuit, Mangold v. Norfolk Southern Railway Co. reminds employers of the importance of keeping an employee’s participation in protected activity on a need-to-know basis as a preventative...more
On April 2, 2019, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Alabama denied a defendant-employer’s motion for summary judgment on a SOX whistleblower retaliation claim, finding genuine issues of material fact...more
On February 12, 2018, the United States District Court for the Northern District of Mississippi recently denied a motion for summary judgment in a SOX whistleblower claim where the defendant company alleged that it terminated...more
A recent decision from the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals highlights the distinction between firing an employee for personal or politically expedient reasons (which may be entirely legal) and firing an employee because of his...more
Earlier this month, the National Labor Relations Board (NRLB) ruled that an employee who was fired after warning a co-worker his job was at risk had engaged in inherently protected activity and must be reinstated. The case,...more
Seyfarth Synopsis: An employee who expresses opposition to an employer’s policies and practices that affect members of the general public is not engaging in an activity that FEHA protects, because the activity is not opposing...more
In Westawski v. Merck & Co., No. 14-cv-3239 (E.D. Pa. Oct. 18, 2016), the Eastern District of Pennsylvania granted Defendant Merck & Co. (Company) summary judgment on Plaintiff Joni Westawski’s (Plaintiff) SOX whistleblower...more
Executive Summary: Just when employers thought New Jersey's Supreme Court could not expand the state's whistleblower law further (as we reported last summer), the Conscientious Employee Protection Act (CEPA) once again has...more
Question: One of our male supervisors wants to fire a female employee who complained that he was sexually harassing her. The harassment allegations appear to have some substance: he asked her for pictures of herself in a...more
On February 18, 2016, the ARB dismissed a former employee’s whistleblower retaliation claim under Section 806 of SOX, concluding that he failed to show that his protected activity contributed to the decision to terminate his...more
Yelp, Inc. is more accustomed to being on the giving—rather than the receiving—end of a negative review. That changed recently when a Yelp customer service employee, Talia Ben-Ora, posted an open letter to Yelp’s CEO on her...more
On August 26, 2015, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois granted summary judgment on a whistleblower retaliation claim under Section 806 of SOX, holding that Plaintiff Ivor Hill failed to establish a...more
Ninth Circuit Reviews Enforceability of Waiver of Right to Reemployment - Does California Business and Professions Code § 16600 prohibit employees from waiving their right to reemployment with prior employers? The...more
In a case that may have a broad impact, the New Jersey Appellate Division issued a decision on December 24, 2013, upholding criminal charges against a former school board clerk who took hundreds of confidential documents for...more
On December 12, 2013, the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York granted an employer summary judgment on a long-running SOX whistleblower claim. Sharkey v. J.P. Morgan Chase & Co., No. 10-cv-3824 (S.D.N.Y....more
The U.S. District Court for the District of Colorado followed a trend of decisions concluding that a plaintiff need not have provided the SEC with information regarding alleged federal securities law violations to pursue a...more
In This Issue: - Whistleblower protections and in-House Counsel - Sarbanes-oxley - The Dodd-Frank Act - The False Claims Act - Common Law Wrongful Discharge Claims - The Ethical...more
While the Department of Labor's Administrative Review Board (ARB) and the majority of federal courts once agreed that, in order to engage in "protected activity" under the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX), a whistleblower must...more