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
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 you are an employer covered by the federal Fifth Circuit (Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi), you are probably familiar with the “ultimate employment decision” standard: In determining whether an employee suffered an...more
No-fault attendance policies may be on a watchlist for the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
A recent matter before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, EEOC v. Eberspaecher North America Inc.,...more
Employment lawyers always win war story contests at cocktail parties. Facts like the ones in Davis v. ULP provide ample fodder for those type of conversations.
Performance Problems or Age Discrimination?
The...more
There has been a lot of discussion over the last few years about the joint employer test for liability under employment statutes. Whether it be Uber drivers in California or the back and forth over the Trump administration’s...more
In another chapter in litigation alliteration, in Maner v. Dignity Health, f/k/a Catholic Healthcare West, the Ninth Circuit held that a male employee’s theory that his supervisor’s long-term romantic relationship with a...more
9/9/2021
/ Discrimination ,
Employees ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Employment Litigation ,
Employment Policies ,
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) ,
Hiring & Firing ,
Preferred Treatment ,
Retaliation ,
Sex Discrimination ,
Summary Judgment ,
Termination ,
Title VII ,
Workplace Romances
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
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
In a case that garnered big headlines, the Supreme Court weighed in yesterday on whether a claimant’s failure to amend her EEOC charge divests the federal court from hearing part of her Title VII claim. While the decision...more
6/5/2019
/ Affirmative Defenses ,
Amended Complaints ,
Appeals ,
Charge-Filing Preconditions ,
Civil Rights Act ,
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) ,
Forfeiture ,
Fort Bend County Texas v Davis ,
Jurisdictional Requirements ,
Mandatory Claim-Processing Rules ,
Reaffirmation ,
Reasonable Accommodation ,
Religious Discrimination ,
Retaliation ,
Reversal ,
SCOTUS ,
Time-Barred Claims ,
Title VII ,
Waiver Rule ,
Wrongful Termination
Not all requests for accommodation or FMLA leave will fit into neat boxes like “pregnancy” or “knee surgery.” Because the ADA definition of a disability includes any impairment that affects a major life function, employers...more
1/7/2019
/ Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) ,
Appeals ,
Corporate Counsel ,
Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) ,
Hiring & Firing ,
Interactive Process ,
Leave of Absence ,
Mental Health ,
Reasonable Accommodation ,
Retaliation ,
Summary Judgment ,
Traveling Employee
Employment lawyers and most HR professionals are familiar with the Faragher-Ellerth defense to a claim of sexual harassment. In short, if an employer can show that (1) it exercised reasonable care to prevent and correct...more
9/13/2018
/ Anti-Harassment Policies ,
Appeals ,
Complaint Procedures ,
Corporate Counsel ,
Dismissals ,
Employee Handbooks ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Failure to Report ,
Faragher/Ellerth defense ,
Gender Discrimination ,
Hiring & Firing ,
Hostile Environment ,
Human Resources Professionals ,
Retaliation ,
Reversal ,
Sexual Harassment ,
Title VII
Can an organist really be considered a church minister? In a detailed and unique opinion, an Illinois federal court applied the First Amendment’s religious clauses to a church employee who claimed he had been discriminated...more
8/7/2018
/ Age Discrimination ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Employment Discrimination ,
Employment Litigation ,
Evidence ,
First Amendment ,
Hiring & Firing ,
Ministerial Function ,
National Origin Discrimination ,
Religious Institutions ,
Retaliation
The Fifth Circuit has issued another opinion in the continuing saga of Jackson State University and its past athletic director, Dr. Vivian Fuller—this one about retaliation against a witness. To refresh everyone’s memory: A...more
Can fear of an aspect of your job constitute a disability under the ADA? Depends on how essential the function is. In Stevens v. Rite Aid Corp, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals looked at the case of a Rite Aid pharmacist,...more
3/24/2017
/ Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) ,
Disability ,
Disability Discrimination ,
Employment Litigation ,
Essential Functions ,
Hiring & Firing ,
Pharmacies ,
Pharmacist ,
Reasonable Accommodation ,
Retaliation ,
Rite Aid ,
Wrongful Termination
Can a plaintiff get emotional distress damages in a wage and hour claim? In December 2016, the Fifth Circuit issued an opinion of first impression where it found that a plaintiff filing a retaliation claim as part of an...more
Is it still retaliation if your boss fired you for something you didn’t actually do? In Heffernan v. City of Paterson, New Jersey, the U.S. Supreme Court said yes—your boss’s mistake does not get him off the hook for the...more
5/12/2016
/ Demotions ,
First Amendment ,
Free Speech ,
Heffernan v City of Paterson ,
Hiring & Firing ,
Mistake of Fact ,
Political Campaigns ,
Political Expression ,
Public Employees ,
Retaliation ,
SCOTUS
In August, a judge awarded former Jackson State University (JSU) head coach, Denise Taylor, $200,000 in damages for “emotional pain and suffering” she endured during her employment. Taylor was the head women’s basketball...more