If an employee complains about a sexually suggestive picture circulating in the workplace that looks like her but is not, is that a hostile work environment complaint? It might be. In Lillian Carranza v. City of Los Angeles,...more
7/31/2025
/ Appeals ,
California ,
City of Los Angeles ,
Corporate Counsel ,
Damages ,
Employees ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Employment Discrimination ,
Employment Litigation ,
Hostile Environment ,
Sex Discrimination ,
Sexual Harassment ,
Workplace Harassment Guidance
While artificial intelligence (AI) can be a powerful tool in a manager’s arsenal when it comes to efficiently making decisions, it is essential to use it ethically and fairly. Companies are no longer relying on AI solely to...more
7/24/2025
/ Algorithms ,
Artificial Intelligence ,
Best Practices ,
Bias ,
Bots ,
Corporate Counsel ,
Department of Labor (DOL) ,
Employees ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Employment Discrimination ,
Employment Litigation ,
Employment Policies ,
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) ,
Hiring & Firing ,
Human Resources Professionals ,
Technology
The Big Beautiful Bill was signed into law by President Trump on July 4, 2025. The BBB is a complex budget reconciliation law (a law that follows a special procedure for more simplified passage) that contains over a thousand...more
7/10/2025
/ Corporate Counsel ,
Dependent Care ,
Employee Benefits ,
Enforcement ,
Federal Budget ,
Flexible Spending Accounts ,
Immigration Enforcement ,
Medicaid ,
New Legislation ,
One Big Beautiful Bill Act ,
Over-Time ,
Paid Family Leave Law ,
Paid Leave ,
Policies and Procedures ,
Tax Deductions ,
Tips ,
Trump Administration
If a qualified job candidate asks to reschedule a second-round interview due to severe menstrual cramps associated with endometriosis, is that a request for an accommodation under the Americans with Disabilities Act? If you...more
6/18/2025
/ Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) ,
Corporate Counsel ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Employment Discrimination ,
Employment Litigation ,
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) ,
Gender Discrimination ,
Healthcare ,
Hiring & Firing ,
Job Applicants ,
Reasonable Accommodation ,
Settlement ,
Sex Discrimination ,
Title VII
Earlier this month, in Strife v. Aldine Independent School District, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals held that an employer’s delayed accommodation of an employee’s disability could amount to a failure to accommodate under...more
5/28/2025
/ Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) ,
Appeals ,
Corporate Counsel ,
Disability Discrimination ,
Discrimination ,
Educational Institutions ,
Employee Rights ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Employer Responsibilities ,
Employment Litigation ,
Failure to Accommodate ,
Reasonable Accommodation ,
School Districts
Recall that just last year, the EEOC updated its Enforcement Guidance on Harassment in the Workplace for the first time in 30 years. We blogged about it here. Earlier this year, President Trump issued Executive Order 14168...more
5/23/2025
/ Constitutional Challenges ,
Corporate Counsel ,
Employment Discrimination ,
Enforcement Actions ,
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) ,
Federal Labor Laws ,
Gender Identity ,
Judicial Authority ,
Sexual Harassment ,
Texas ,
Title VII
At some point, every employer will need to investigate an employee’s complaint. An investigation is an important tool that employers can use to fix a workplace problem and minimize liability. Or, an investigation can create...more
1/31/2025
/ Anti-Retaliation Provisions ,
Corporate Counsel ,
Employee Misconduct ,
Employee Rights ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Employment Litigation ,
Employment Policies ,
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) ,
Investigations ,
Workplace Harassment Guidance ,
Workplace Safety
By now, everyone has heard about the Texas court putting the kibosh on the new salary exempt thresholds. In other exemption classification news, the United States Supreme Court is set to issue an opinion in early 2025...more
11/20/2024
/ Corporate Counsel ,
Department of Labor (DOL) ,
Employees ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Evidentiary Standards ,
Exemptions ,
Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) ,
Minimum Salary ,
Misclassification ,
Over-Time ,
Threshold Requirements ,
Wage and Hour
Here’s a refresher: Discriminating against a subclass of a sex (e.g., older women or black women) is still discrimination. In McCreight v. AuburnBank, the Eleventh Circuit clarified a few things for the lawyers related to the...more
9/26/2024
/ Age Discrimination ,
Civil Rights Act ,
Corporate Counsel ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Employment Litigation ,
Employment Policies ,
Enforcement Actions ,
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) ,
Hostile Environment ,
Retaliation ,
Sexual Harassment ,
Title VII
If an employer or coworker persistently uses a transgender worker’s wrong name or identified pronoun, can that constitute a hostile work environment in violation of Title VII? In Copeland v. Georgia Department of Corrections,...more
5/9/2024
/ Appeals ,
Bostock v Clayton County Georgia ,
Corporate Counsel ,
Discrimination ,
Employees ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Employment Litigation ,
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) ,
Gender Identity ,
Harassment ,
Hostile Environment ,
Remand ,
Retaliation ,
SCOTUS ,
Summary Judgment ,
Title VII ,
Transgender ,
Vacated
If an individual’s disability causes involuntary racist or profane utterances, what would a reasonable accommodation under the ADA look like? In Cooper v. Dolgencorp, LLC, the Sixth Circuit faced just such an inquiry....more
Changes in supervision may result in fresh ways of doing things. Certain rules that were never fully enforced may now come to the forefront. Can a new supervisor’s radical change in a long-term employee’s performance rating...more
Does the fact that an individual is disabled automatically make him a “qualified individual with a disability” under Title I of the ADA? In Stanley v. City of Sanford, Florida, the Eleventh Circuit said no....more
10/20/2023
/ Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) ,
Anti-Retaliation Provisions ,
Corporate Counsel ,
Disability Discrimination ,
Employee Benefits ,
Employees ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Retaliation ,
Retirement ,
Title I ,
Title VII
Your employee requests a reasonable accommodation under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) but you refuse to grant it. If the employee continues to perform their job, can the employee still sue you for refusing the...more
5/31/2023
/ Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) ,
Appeals ,
Compensation ,
Corporate Counsel ,
Disability ,
Employee Training ,
Employees ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Employment Litigation ,
Failure to Accommodate ,
Hiring & Firing ,
Interpreters ,
Reasonable Accommodation ,
Reversal
Can you require your workers to arbitrate claims? What if they work in interstate commerce? Recently several courts have addressed the scope of the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA) and when it applies to arbitration agreements...more
If you take on a federal contract, does that make you a state actor? No, according to a unanimous Sixth Circuit panel in Ciraci v. J.M. Smucker Company.
During World War II, the Army included Smucker’s apple butter in its...more
3/21/2023
/ Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) ,
Class Action ,
Constitutional Challenges ,
Coronavirus/COVID-19 ,
Corporate Counsel ,
Employees ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Employer Mandates ,
Federal Contractors ,
First Amendment ,
Free Exercise Clause ,
GINA ,
Religious Accommodation ,
Religious Exemption ,
Smuckers ,
Title VII ,
Vaccinations
Employers sometimes face difficult decisions after learning of an employee’s disability. What if you learn of a disability after ongoing repeated employment deficiencies or even after a disciplinary or discharge decision...more
2/21/2023
/ Absenteeism ,
Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) ,
Appeals ,
Corporate Counsel ,
Disability Discrimination ,
Disclosure Requirements ,
Employees ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Employment Litigation ,
Employment Policies ,
Failure to Accommodate ,
Failure to Notify ,
Hiring & Firing ,
Termination
Most of us know that when an employee or visitor to a place of public accommodation requests a reasonable accommodation, the ADA requires an interactive process to make an individualized determination. But what about a...more
2/16/2023
/ Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) ,
Corporate Counsel ,
Disability Discrimination ,
Dog-Friendly Workplace ,
Employees ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Employment Policies ,
Health and Safety ,
Healthcare ,
Hospitals ,
Nursing Homes ,
Reasonable Accommodation ,
Service Animals
Do you have to pay an employee on military leave? Generally, you only have to pay for military leave if you pay employees on “comparable” leaves. So what is a comparable leave? In Clarkson v. Alaska Airlines, Inc., the Ninth...more
2/15/2023
/ Corporate Counsel ,
Employee Benefits ,
Employee Rights ,
Employees ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Employment Discrimination ,
Employment Policies ,
Military Leave ,
Military Service Members ,
USERRA ,
Wage and Hour
In Glacier Northwest, Inc. v. Int’l Brotherhood of Teamsters Local Union 174, the Washington Supreme Court addressed the issue of whether a union is responsible for property damage incident to a strike. How does that issue...more
An employer establishes a weekend work policy where only male employees can take both days off, and female employees can only take one weekend day off. Sounds like gender discrimination maybe? Well, in Hamilton, et al. v....more
If a letter from the EEOC is in your virtual mailbox but you never open it, have you received it? Most of us are familiar with the requirement that a claimant who files an EEOC charge has 90 days to file a lawsuit after...more
The Wage and Hour Division of the Department of Labor unveiled a new program, “Essential Workers—Essential Protections,” that focuses on making sure employers comply with overtime and other wage requirements for workers on...more
Retaliation claims in employment litigation have been on the rise for years. The typical scenario has an employee reporting some sort of alleged discriminatory act, either against them or a coworker, followed by the employer...more
How long do you have to reinstate an employee following military leave? In Harwood v. American Airlines, the Fourth Circuit found that a delay of six or eight weeks was too long. The Uniformed Services Employment and...more