Just this week, in Richards v. Eli Lily & Co., the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals became the third circuit to depart from the long-standing Lusardi standard for distributing notice to potential plaintiffs in collective...more
8/7/2025
/ ADEA ,
Age Discrimination ,
Appellate Courts ,
Collective Actions ,
Document Management ,
Employment Litigation ,
Employment Policies ,
Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) ,
Job Descriptions ,
Litigation Strategies ,
Notice Requirements ,
Wage and Hour
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
Maybe you are one of the lucky employers who has not been sued in court or received a charge filed with a federal or state agency enforcing employment laws, like the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) or the...more
The call or visit that no employer wants to receive: a Department of Labor representative asking to look at your payroll records. The Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) gives the Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division...more
7/3/2025
/ Department of Labor (DOL) ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Employer Responsibilities ,
Employment Litigation ,
Enforcement Actions ,
Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) ,
Liquidated Damages ,
Minimum Wage ,
New Guidance ,
Over-Time ,
Settlement ,
Wage and Hour
In, Stanley v. City of Sanford, Florida, the U.S. Supreme Court clarified the scope of the Americans with Disabilities Act, holding that Title I’s employment discrimination provisions do not apply to individuals who are...more
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
Before June 5, 2025, the law (at least in some jurisdictions) was that majority-group employees (e.g., white or heterosexual) had to show additional “background circumstances” in addition to a prima facie case to prove...more
If you have a grooming policy based on safety factors (like no beards for firefighters), does that trump an employee’s request for a religious accommodation? Maybe not. A recent Third Circuit decision, Smith v. City of...more
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
Can you compel arbitration with an employee who is alleging sexual harassment? You may recall that in 2022, Congress enacted the Ending Forced Arbitration of Sexual Assault and Sexual Harassment Act (EFAA), which precludes...more
4/25/2025
/ #MeToo ,
Appeals ,
Arbitration ,
Arbitration Agreements ,
Discrimination ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Employment Discrimination ,
Employment Litigation ,
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) ,
Sex Discrimination ,
Sexual Harassment ,
Statutory Interpretation
In Title VII actions, plaintiffs have a limited amount of time to file a charge of discrimination (or a court can dismiss the case as untimely). In the case of Wells v. Texas Tech University, the timeliness dynamic was...more
3/11/2025
/ Adverse Employment Action ,
Discrimination ,
Employee Rights ,
Employees ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Employment Litigation ,
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) ,
Gender Discrimination ,
Retaliation ,
Sexual Harassment ,
Title VII
As the mainstream media has reported, President Trump is firing everyone he can (and maybe some he can’t) at the National Labor Relations Board. On day one, the president fired the NLRB’s general counsel, Jennifer Abruzzo, a...more
2/25/2025
/ Employee Rights ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Employment Litigation ,
Hiring & Firing ,
Labor Reform ,
Labor Regulations ,
NLRA ,
NLRB ,
Non-Compete Agreements ,
Trump Administration ,
Unions
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
The federal Worker Adjustment Retraining Notification Act (the WARN Act), generally requires that employers give workers 60 days’ written notice of any plant closings or mass layoffs. If employers do not comply with this...more
1/8/2025
/ Back Pay ,
Bankruptcy Court ,
Compliance ,
Department of Labor (DOL) ,
Employees ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Employment Litigation ,
Layoffs ,
Notice Requirements ,
Risk Management ,
Unions ,
WARN Act
Most employers have gotten the hang of handling FMLA requests: Make sure the employee is eligible; get paperwork from the provider; and monitor the amount of time taken. Whether all supervisors are overjoyed with every...more
We have news on two fronts:
First, the FTC Rule -
As related to the Federal Trade Commission’s nationwide ban on noncompete agreements, the FTC has appealed the federal court injunction in Texas to the federal Fifth...more
10/25/2024
/ Employees ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Employment Litigation ,
Federal Bans ,
Federal Trade Commission (FTC) ,
Final Rules ,
Legislative Agendas ,
NLRB ,
NLRB General Counsel ,
Non-Compete Agreements ,
Regulatory Agenda
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
The top lawyer for the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) is ordering her subordinates to continue to seek injunctions against employers for alleged violations of the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), despite the...more
What happens when the NLRB asks a federal court to remand a case back to the board based on a new case holding to interpret the matter before it, the court does so, and then the board pulls a “bait and switch” to flat out...more
On Wednesday, July 3, a Texas federal court enjoined the Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) rule banning most noncompetes (the Noncompete Rule) and has stayed the implementation of the Noncompete Rule, but only as to the...more
7/9/2024
/ Appeals ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Employment Contract ,
Employment Litigation ,
Federal Bans ,
Federal Trade Commission (FTC) ,
Final Rules ,
Litigation Strategies ,
Non-Compete Agreements ,
Preliminary Injunctions ,
Texas
A National Labor Relations Board administrative law judge in San Francisco recently ruled that Amazon CEO Andy Jassy violated the National Labor Relations Act when he commented on labor unions through several media outlets....more
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 you transfer an employee to a job with no loss in pay or title but the employee thinks it is less desirable, can that employee sue you for discrimination under Title VII? While it depends on the facts, in Muldrow v. St....more
5/2/2024
/ Adverse Employment Action ,
Civil Rights Act ,
Discrimination ,
Diversity and Inclusion Standards (D&I) ,
Employee Transfers ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Employment Discrimination ,
Employment Litigation ,
Gender Discrimination ,
Hiring & Firing ,
Lateral Transfers ,
Muldrow v City of St Louis ,
SCOTUS ,
Sex Discrimination ,
Title VII
Can you prevent your employees from handing out pro-union paraphernalia if they’re on a paid break? After brewing on the issue, the D.C. Circuit says no, backing baristas in the first of five National Labor Relations Board...more