The sometimes agonizingly slow Equal Employment Opportunity Commission is trying to be more efficient. According to the latest Agency Financial Report, in fiscal year 2019 the EEOC reduced the level of pending private sector...more
If an employee misses work to attend church on Sunday morning and the company subsequently fires her, is that religious discrimination? A jury in Texas recently said yes and awarded the plaintiff close to $350,000. The...more
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
Sometimes employment laws can make the common person’s head spin. That certainly could be the case for a recent Fifth Circuit opinion examining the “highly compensated” regulatory exemption from the overtime requirements of...more
9/5/2019
/ Appeals ,
Corporate Counsel ,
Employment Litigation ,
Exempt-Employees ,
Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) ,
Highly Compensated Employees ,
Independent Contractors ,
Minimum Salary ,
Over-Time ,
Summary Judgment ,
Unpaid Overtime ,
Wage and Hour
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
In May, JPMorgan Chase entered into a class action settlement regarding allegations that it treated male employees differently than female employees under the company’s parental leave program. On its face, the terms of the...more
Is discrimination against an employee because of sexual orientation or transgender status a violation of Title VII? The EEOC previously took the position that Title VII covers those statuses but the Trump administration has...more
4/29/2019
/ Altitude Express Inc v Zarda ,
Bostock v Clayton County Georgia ,
Certiorari ,
Civil Rights Act ,
EEOC v RG & GR Harris Funeral Homes ,
Employment Litigation ,
Gender Identity ,
Hiring & Firing ,
LGBTQ ,
SCOTUS ,
Sex Discrimination ,
Sexual Orientation ,
Sexual Orientation Discrimination ,
Title VII ,
Transgender
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
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
If an employer provides a temporary reassignment to accommodate an employee’s disability/pregnancy restrictions, does it have to return her to that assignment after her maternity leave? The EEOC seems to think so. In Equal...more
When is it safe to take action against an employee (or a former employee) who filed an EEOC charge against you? As the 7th Circuit just found in Baines v. Walgreen Co., you can never –REPEAT, NEVER – take action because an...more
7/26/2017
/ Discrimination ,
Employee Transfers ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Employment Litigation ,
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) ,
Hiring & Firing ,
Job Applicants ,
Pharmacies ,
Race Discrimination ,
Retaliation ,
Walgreens
There has been a lot of discussion over the last year about whether transgender employees are protected against sex discrimination under Title VII—but what about against disability discrimination under the Americans with...more
Managing intermittent FMLA is every employer’s nightmare (or is it just me?). Employees are entitled to take leave and operations folks find it difficult to keep the trains running on time with employees who don’t show up...more