Is everything covered by the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA)? Although we all know the ADA broadly defines the conditions that are protected disabilities, the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals’ decision in Shell v....more
Add this case to your “Be Sure to Document Your Non-Discriminatory Reasons” file. An employee doing bad things lost on summary judgment in an employment discrimination action, even though she alleged that the company did not...more
11/1/2019
/ ADEA ,
Age Discrimination ,
Appeals ,
Dismissals ,
Employee Misconduct ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Employment Discrimination ,
Employment Litigation ,
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) ,
Evidence ,
Failure to Investigate ,
Hiring & Firing ,
Summary Judgment
Does a position that a company is holding for an employee out on FMLA leave an “open position” as contemplated by the Americans with Disabilities Act? In Maxwell v. Washington County, a Mississippi federal district court said...more
In an important wage-and-hour decision for franchisors, Salazar, et al. v. the McDonald’s Corp., et al., the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that employees of one of the hamburger giant’s California-based franchisees...more
10/2/2019
/ Class Action ,
Corporate Counsel ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Employment Litigation ,
Fast-Food Industry ,
Franchises ,
Franchisors ,
Joint Employers ,
McDonalds ,
State Labor Laws ,
Summary Judgment ,
Wage and Hour
Recently, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) issued another pro-employer decision, resolving an issue at the forefront of employment law, independent contractor classification. In Velox Express, Inc. and Jeannie Edge,...more
Do your employees sign arbitration agreements? If so, do your arbitration agreements prevent employees from joining class actions against your company? Does your company want to start requiring arbitration agreements? If...more
9/17/2019
/ Arbitration ,
Arbitration Agreements ,
Class Action Arbitration Waivers ,
Collective Action Waivers ,
Contract Drafting ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Employment Contract ,
Employment Litigation ,
Former Employee ,
Hiring & Firing ,
Mandatory Arbitration ,
State Labor Laws
If you want to avoid potential liability from a former employee, remember a key maxim: Stick to your story about why you made the employment decision. If an employer shifts rationales for its decision or tries to pile on by...more
9/10/2019
/ Corporate Counsel ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Employment Litigation ,
Hiring & Firing ,
Human Resources Professionals ,
Jury Trial ,
Motion for Summary Judgment ,
Piling-On ,
Pregnancy Discrimination ,
Retaliation ,
Summary Judgment ,
Termination
The EEOC’s revised EEO-1 form, which now includes employee pay data, must be filed for covered employers for calendar years 2017 and 2018 by September 30, 2019. Remember that EEO-1 forms are required of all employers with 100...more
If your employee sues you for discrimination, they don’t get to look at how the decision-makers treated everyone else, do they? Well, in Cruz vs. US Homeland Security, the D.C. Court of Appeals says yes they do. Although the...more
The era of #MeToo has caused employers to hyper-focus on harassment claims. They have fine-tuned their policies, investigated claims more carefully, and acted swiftly and sometimes even in a draconian fashion upon finding any...more
Obesity has been recognized as a disease by the American Medical Association, National Institutes of Health, and the World Health Organization. Does that mean obesity qualifies as a physical impairment under the Americans...more
Can you ask a job applicant criminal history? As with so many legal questions, the answer is “it depends” — on where you work, in this case. A recently enacted law will change this answer for Colorado employers beginning as...more
6/12/2019
/ Background Checks ,
Ban the Box ,
Criminal Background Checks ,
Criminal Records ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Employment Discrimination ,
Hiring & Firing ,
Job Ads ,
Job Applicants ,
New Legislation ,
State Labor Laws
An employee is on maternity leave and it does not look like she is going to be returning to work. Should you go ahead and terminate her employment during the maternity leave? Wait until it is over to terminate her employment?...more
If you conduct pre-hire background checks, you know you have to comply with the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) or risk trouble (called lawsuits). Part of that compliance is providing notice to the applicant if you are going...more
10/24/2018
/ Adverse Employment Action ,
Background Checks ,
Comment Period ,
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) ,
Economic Growth Regulatory Relief and Consumer Protection Act ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) ,
Hiring & Firing ,
Identity Theft ,
Job Applicants ,
Notice Requirements ,
Public Comment ,
Summary of Rights
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
10/4/2018
/ Appeals ,
Corporate Counsel ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Employment Litigation ,
Hiring & Firing ,
Hostile Environment ,
Performance Reviews ,
Poor Job Performance ,
Race Discrimination ,
Racial Bias ,
Retaliation ,
Summary Judgment
What do you do when an employee discloses that he or she is stressed out and needs a reasonable accommodation under the Americans with Disabilities Act, but the requested accommodation strikes you as unreasonable? If you are...more
In the wake of the #MeToo movement, I have clients wanting to know what they can do both to improve their workplace and protect themselves. They all have good policies and regularly train supervisors and employees on them. So...more
9/10/2018
/ Anti-Harassment Policies ,
Complaint Procedures ,
Discrimination ,
EEO ,
Employee Training ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Employment Policies ,
Gender Identity ,
Harassment ,
Risk Management ,
Sex Discrimination ,
Sexual Harassment ,
Sexual Orientation Discrimination ,
Title VII ,
Workplace Communication
In setting a new employee’s pay, what do you consider? Past experience? Check. Education? Check. Salary at the last job? Not so fast. In a recent Ninth Circuit decision, the court framed the question as follows:
Can an...more
I have told clients for years that they ignore claims based on sexual orientation at their peril, and another court is backing me up. An Arizona federal district court just ordered a wine bar to pay real money ($100,000) to...more
4/10/2018
/ Anti-Harassment Policies ,
Default Judgment ,
EEO ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) ,
Hiring & Firing ,
Injunctive Relief ,
Retaliation ,
Sexual Harassment ,
Sexual Orientation Discrimination ,
Title VII
Like every other employment lawyer in America, I have been giving a good bit of thought to #MeToo and what it means for my clients. Many (although certainly not all) of the stories under this hashtag are about unreported...more
When you promote someone into a position, do you have to pay him what you paid his predecessor? As with so many things – it depends. Can you pay less if the promotee has less experience and a lower prior salary than the...more
2/28/2018
/ Corporate Counsel ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Equal Pay Act ,
Gender Discrimination ,
Gender-Based Pay Discrimination ,
Hiring & Firing ,
Human Resources Professionals ,
Reversal ,
Sex Discrimination ,
Summary Judgment ,
Title VII ,
Wage and Hour
Remember that case we told you about last year with the flu vaccines and the EEOC suing for employees on religious discrimination grounds? To recap– in Equal Employment Opportunity Commission v. Mission Hospital a federal...more
The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s fiscal year ended on Sept. 30, 2017 and it has released its yearly "Performance and Accountability Report." Although this is a look back, it provides insight on what is...more
12/27/2017
/ Age Discrimination ,
Annual Reports ,
Disability Discrimination ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Employment Discrimination ,
Employment Litigation ,
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) ,
Genetic Discrimination ,
Harassment ,
Hiring & Firing ,
Mediation ,
National Origin Discrimination ,
Race Discrimination ,
Reasonable Accommodation ,
Regulatory Violations ,
Religious Discrimination ,
Retaliation ,
Sex Discrimination
Before everyone gets out of the office to their various homes and families to celebrate the holiday, we wanted to review the year and count our blessings. Not only are we thankful that our families and colleagues in our...more
11/22/2017
/ Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) ,
Decriminalization of Marijuana ,
Department of Labor (DOL) ,
Drug Testing ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Employment Policies ,
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) ,
Independent Contractors ,
Joint Employers ,
Marijuana ,
Medical Leave ,
NLRB ,
Reasonable Accommodation ,
Sexual Assault ,
Sexual Harassment ,
Social Media Policy ,
Wage and Hour
We have said it before — the EEOC believes that leave is a reasonable accommodation and automatic termination when FMLA leave runs out violates the Americans with Disabilities Act. Even though at least one federal court has...more