The Chartwell Chronicles: Employment Law
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#WorkforceWednesday: OSHA ETS on Hold, Retaliation Claims Increase, "Vaccination Ambassadors" - Employment Law This Week®
In April 2022, a Kentucky jury awarded $450,000 to a fired employee who claimed that an unwanted office birthday party triggered panic attacks. The employee refused to attend the party on his behalf and was later terminated....more
North Carolina’s Retaliatory Employment Discrimination Act (REDA) provides employees with legal claims against employers that retaliate against them for engaging in protected actions under state workers’ compensation, wage...more
Ferra v. Loews Hollywood Hotel, LLC, 40 Cal. App. 5th 1239, 253 Cal. Rptr. 3d 798 (2019) - Summary: Term “regular rate of compensation” for calculating meal or rest break premium payments is not synonymous with term...more
“Claims of sexual harassment typically involve the behavior of fellow employees. But not always,” said a federal appeals court in Gardner v. CLC of Pascagoula, LLC. The case shows employers must take employee complaints of...more
Welcome to the third edition of the Law @ Work Employer Newsletter. For those of you who read the Law @ Work blog, you know that the blog offers an in-depth analysis of important legal developments. This Newsletter fills in...more
On Tuesday, a Los Angeles jury did what L.A. juries do so often these days — they awarded tens of millions of dollars to an ex-employee who claimed she had been the victim of discrimination, wrongful termination and...more
If you work in human resources, or are an executive or employment lawyer, at some point you probably have thought, heard or said words to the effect of “Juries are very unpredictable and can do some crazy things.” I admit...more
Two recent verdicts from California Superior Court juries have awarded former employees $6 million and $7.9 million, respectively, in compensatory damages after a finding of wrongful termination. Martinez v. Rite Aid Corp....more
The courts, the Department of Justice, and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission hold differing views on whether Title VII prohibits employment discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or sexual identity....more
Jury panels in the Los Angeles Superior Court (which is often referred to as “The Bank” by the plaintiffs’ bar) have recently delivered multimillion-dollar verdicts to former-employee plaintiffs. Many employers doing business...more
On May 11, 2017, a federal jury in Charlotte, North Carolina awarded a former fire department employee, Crystal Eschert, a $1.5 million verdict in a retaliatory discharge lawsuit that teaches powerful lessons in today’s...more
Companies entrust their in-house attorneys with sensitive and confidential information in order to obtain legal advice on important matters. Thus, when an in-house attorney turns on his or her employer, the repercussions can...more
In a company with a robust compliance culture, potential whistleblowers can express their concerns without fear of retribution. By contrast, the penalty for a culture that silences whistleblowers just got steeper. Companies...more
In EEOC v. Northern Star Hospitality, Inc., No. 12-CV-214 (W.D. Wis.), a case we have blogged about previously here, Judge Barbara B. Crabb of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Wisconsin imposed contempt...more
Last month, a federal district judge in San Diego upheld a $185 million jury verdict in a pregnancy discrimination lawsuit against AutoZone Stores. The verdict is a record for a single-plaintiff employment discrimination...more
Norton v. San Bernardino City Unified School District, No. G049496 (October 9, 2014): A California Court of Appeal recently overturned a jury verdict against an employer on the basis that the jury was incorrectly instructed...more