The EEOC has released its annual report on the number of discrimination charges filed across the country. As has been seen over the last few years, the total number of charges continued to decline –72,675 in 2019 as opposed...more
Can you require employees to sign arbitration agreements? After more than 20 years of saying no, the EEOC has reversed its policy and says you can.
Background -
In 1997 the EEOC issued the Policy Statement on Mandatory...more
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
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
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
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
In this #MeToo era, employers are, understandably, a little sensitive when someone raises a claim of harassment. Even with the heightened sense of peril, companies should remember that if they are doing the right thing—having...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
Ever wonder why the severance agreement that I (or your other favorite employment lawyer) send you says “nothing in this Agreement prevents Employee from filing a charge with the EEOC” (or words to that effect)? I mean, isn’t...more
2/7/2018
/ Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) ,
Disability Discrimination ,
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) ,
Former Employee ,
Hiring & Firing ,
Retaliation ,
Section 503 ,
Section 706 ,
Severance Agreements ,
Severance Pay ,
Strategic Enforcement Plan ,
Title VII
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
The EEOC’s fiscal year just ended and now it is releasing news of its successes. Although this is a look back, it gives us all insight as to what is important to the Commission and, perhaps, how we can stay off its radar....more
11/16/2017
/ Discrimination ,
Employee Training ,
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) ,
Harassment ,
Information Reports ,
Legislative Agendas ,
Mediation ,
Portal ,
Private Sector ,
State and Local Government ,
Time-Management
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
If you require your employees to get a flu shot, what do you do with the ones who refuse on religious grounds? As with so much in employment law, it depends. In Equal Employment Opportunity Commission v. Mission Hospital, a...more
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
Before the Americans with Disabilities Act (and there was a time before the ADA), it was not uncommon to require employees to have a doctor’s note returning them to work “with no restrictions.” That won’t work in today’s ADA...more
If you weren’t sure what it meant to discriminate against someone because of their national origin, the EEOC wants to help. The newly revised Section 13 of the EEOC Field Manual provides guidance on how the EEOC defines...more
3/9/2017
/ Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) ,
Civil Rights Act ,
Discrimination ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Employment Discrimination ,
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) ,
Harassment ,
National Origin ,
National Origin Discrimination ,
Native American Issues ,
Title VII
Dress codes—a helpful workplace rule or a trap for the unwary? A recent Forbes article (High Heels and Workplace Dress Codes: Urgent Action Needed, Say U.K. MPs) relates the story of Nicola Thorp, who was sent home from her...more
A deaf person applies for a job and the employee who takes applications asks you “how can a deaf person do this job?” What if an essential function of the job requires interaction with the public or the ability to communicate...more
Yet another reminder that everyone using criminal background checks in the hiring process needs to review their standards—BMW just entered a consent decree with the EEOC under which it will pay $1.6 million and offer to hire...more
The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) is 25 years old this year. I was a newly minted lawyer when this law emerged in 1990 and as I have grown, so have the number of disability discrimination lawsuits. In celebration of...more