When litigating employment discrimination claims, plaintiffs frequently base their allegations on alleged disparaging comments made by a member of the company’s management. When that manager was the one who made a decision...more
9/5/2025
/ Adverse Employment Action ,
Appeals ,
Disparagement ,
Educational Institutions ,
Employment Discrimination ,
Employment Litigation ,
Evidence ,
Managers ,
Sex Discrimination ,
Sexual Orientation Discrimination ,
Summary Judgment
Both unionized and non-unionized employers are familiar with the National Labor Relations Board’s authority to pursue and adjudicate unfair labor practice charges. Following high-profile charges brought against SpaceX and...more
8/29/2025
/ Appeals ,
Article II ,
Constitutional Challenges ,
Executive Authority ,
NLRA ,
NLRB ,
Preliminary Injunctions ,
Removal ,
Separation of Powers ,
SpaceX ,
Unfair Labor Practices
With the explosion of legal hemp products across the U.S., employers are increasingly faced with employees who claim that a positive test for marijuana resulted from use of legal CBD products. ...more
8/29/2025
/ Appeals ,
At-Will Employment ,
Cannabidiol (CBD) oil ,
Drug Testing ,
Employee Rights ,
Employment Litigation ,
Hemp ,
Marijuana ,
Retaliation ,
State Law Claims ,
Summary Judgment ,
THC
For years, both the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and multiple federal appellate circuits have agreed on the legal standard for proving liability for sexual or other harassment by a third party such as a vendor or...more
8/15/2025
/ Appeals ,
Customers ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Employment Discrimination ,
Employment Litigation ,
Harassment ,
Retaliation ,
Sexual Harassment ,
Statutory Interpretation ,
Third-Party ,
Third-Party Harassment ,
Title VII ,
Vendors
In some situations, employees undergoing serious medical issues request accommodations that would require extensive time away from work or major modifications to their job duties. ...more
Last week in a 7-2 decision, the U.S. Supreme Court held that Title I of the Americans with Disabilities Act does not apply to claims by a former employee that changes to her retiree medical benefits discriminated against her...more
6/27/2025
/ Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) ,
Appeals ,
Disability Discrimination ,
Employee Benefits ,
Employment Discrimination ,
Employment Litigation ,
Federal Labor Laws ,
Former Employee ,
Retirement Plan ,
SCOTUS ,
Stanley v City of Sanford Florida
Employers are familiar with Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) provisions that apply to disabled employees or applicants. However, other portions of the law apply similar prohibitions against discrimination by government...more
6/20/2025
/ Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) ,
Appeals ,
Bad Faith ,
Damages ,
Disability Discrimination ,
Educational Institutions ,
Government Agencies ,
Public Accommodation ,
Public Schools ,
Reasonable Accommodation ,
Rehabilitation Act ,
School Districts ,
SCOTUS ,
Students
The U.S. Supreme Court unanimously rejected use of a special legal test for plaintiffs to prove illegal bias in reverse discrimination cases. ...more
6/13/2025
/ Ames v Ohio Department of Youth Services ,
Appeals ,
Burden of Proof ,
Civil Rights Act ,
Employment Discrimination ,
Employment Litigation ,
Evidentiary Standards ,
Protected Class ,
Reverse Discrimination ,
SCOTUS ,
Sex Discrimination ,
Title VII
On June 2, 2025, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected the appeal of a Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals decision interpreting the limitations period for filing lawsuits under Section 1981 of the Civil Rights Act of 1866. ...more
6/6/2025
/ Appeals ,
Civil Rights Act ,
Dissenting Opinions ,
Employment Discrimination ,
Employment Litigation ,
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) ,
Judicial Authority ,
Motion to Dismiss ,
Popular ,
Race Discrimination ,
SCOTUS ,
Statute of Limitations
The applicability of U.S. labor and employment laws to U.S. citizens working outside of the country can be complicated. In general, if the citizen works for a U.S. company outside of the country, they enjoy the same legal...more
For employers, workers' compensation laws act as both a sword and a shield. While injured employees do not have to prove negligence resulting in the injury, they cannot sue the employer for personal injury outside of the...more
When an employee requests an accommodation under the Americans with Disabilities Act, this sets into motion an interactive process intended to determine whether the requested accommodation is both reasonable and effective....more
Employers sometimes believe that eliminating a job position instead of terminating an employee for poor performance gives them a "get out of jail free" card for purposes of avoiding legal claims associated with the decision....more
5/2/2025
/ Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) ,
Appeals ,
Disability Discrimination ,
Employee Rights ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Employer Responsibilities ,
Employment Discrimination ,
Employment Litigation ,
Hiring & Firing ,
Reasonable Accommodation ,
Termination
The Americans with Disabilities Act prohibits employers from requiring employee medical examinations absent business necessity. The ADA provides a back pay remedy for violations, but limits these damages to discrimination on...more
4/4/2025
/ Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) ,
Appeals ,
Back Pay ,
Damages ,
Disability Discrimination ,
Employee Rights ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Employment Discrimination ,
Employment Litigation ,
Federal Labor Laws ,
Medical Examinations
Last year in a rare victory for the Department of Labor, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals rejected a claim by a Dairy Queen franchisee that the Fair Labor Standards Act prohibits DOL from establishing any minimum salary for...more
2/21/2025
/ Appeals ,
Chevron Deference ,
Department of Labor (DOL) ,
Employment Litigation ,
Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) ,
Final Rules ,
Franchises ,
Minimum Salary ,
Over-Time ,
Regulatory Authority ,
Wage and Hour ,
White-Collar Exemptions
During the COVID-19 pandemic, many employers established internal procedures to evaluate employees' requests for religious and medical-based exemptions from vaccination mandates. ...more
1/10/2025
/ Appeals ,
Civil Rights Act ,
Coronavirus/COVID-19 ,
Corporate Counsel ,
Discrimination ,
Employee Rights ,
Employment Discrimination ,
Employment Litigation ,
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) ,
Religious Accommodation ,
Title VII
The Family and Medical Leave Act provides unpaid job-protected leave for a qualified employee to care for a spouse, parent, or child with a serious health condition. This means that FMLA protections do not extend to employee...more
12/20/2024
/ Appeals ,
Corporate Counsel ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Employment Litigation ,
Employment Policies ,
Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) ,
Hiring & Firing ,
In Loco Parentis ,
Parental Responsibilities ,
Special Needs Adults ,
Wrongful Termination
Under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), employers are required to provide reasonable accommodations to disabled workers, but not necessarily the accommodation favored by the employee. ...more
In the days before cellphones, employees required to remain on-call for work were generally entitled to compensation for time spent at home waiting for the landline to ring. Given the ubiquity of mobile communication...more
When litigating claims under the federal Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), litigants are aware of long-standing case law that essentially awards a prevailing plaintiff with their attorneys’ fees absent extraordinary...more
The "Same Actor Inference" is a legal principle that recognizes the logical gap when an employee alleges that they were terminated based on membership in a protected classification, by a manager who recently hired them with...more
On Monday, a unanimous panel of the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals refused to reverse an injunction barring enforcement of portions of Florida’s Individual Freedom Act. The law in question would bar employers from...more
When advising employers about the legal risks associated with a business reorganization, we generally advise that discrimination claims are less likely when a company closes an entire facility or department as compared to...more
2/23/2024
/ Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) ,
Appeals ,
Disability Discrimination ,
Dismissals ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Employment Litigation ,
Hiring & Firing ,
Reasonable Accommodation ,
Remand ,
Reorganizations ,
Retaliation ,
Reversal ,
Risk Management ,
Summary Judgment ,
Termination
Last week, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals rejected claims from a university professor that she had been subjected to a series of retaliatory acts in the two- and one-half year period following her filing an Equal...more
We have become involved in an increasing number of disputes between companies and their former employees over ownership and use of personal social media accounts. In a typical situation, the employee will use their personal...more