In recent years, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals (which includes North Carolina and South Carolina) has lowered the bar for plaintiffs to take racial harassment claims to a jury trial when the alleged conduct involved use...more
In recent years, a number of federal appellant courts, including the Fourth Circuit, have issued opinions finding that a single use of a racial slur can be enough to constitute a hostile and offensive working environment...more
9/6/2019
/ Appeals ,
Corporate Counsel ,
Dismissals ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Harassment ,
Hiring & Firing ,
Hostile Environment ,
Poor Job Performance ,
Race Discrimination ,
Reaffirmation ,
Safety Violations ,
Slurs ,
Summary Judgment ,
Supervisors ,
Title VII
Perhaps the most frequently violated provision of the Fair Labor Standards Act is that law’s requirement that non-discretionary bonuses be included in non-exempt employees’ regular rate of pay used for purposes of calculating...more
Under the Family and Medical Leave Act, employers cannot penalize employees for use of FMLA leave. Earlier this month, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals found that an employer’s resetting of a perfect attendance program...more
8/21/2019
/ Appeals ,
Attendance ,
Corporate Counsel ,
Employee Benefits ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Employment Litigation ,
Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) ,
Medical Leave ,
Paid Leave ,
Reversal ,
Wage and Hour
When we talk with clients about post-employment “noncompete” agreements, this term actually encompasses a number of different restrictions. In addition to provisions that restrict the employee from working for a competitor...more
In 2012, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission issued enforcement guidance on employers’ use of criminal background checks in the hiring process. The EEOC concluded that indiscriminate use of such checks has a disparate...more
8/14/2019
/ Administrative Procedure Act ,
Appeals ,
Background Checks ,
Criminal Background Checks ,
Disparate Impact ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Enforcement Guidance ,
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) ,
Hiring & Firing ,
Injunctions ,
Job Applicants
One of the major trends in recent years in employment discrimination law has been the lowering of the standard required for a plaintiff to demonstrate a hostile and offensive working environment based on race or sex. Federal...more
8/5/2019
/ Appeals ,
Collective Bargaining Agreements (CBA) ,
Employment Litigation ,
Facebook ,
Harassment ,
Hostile Environment ,
Race Discrimination ,
Sex Discrimination ,
Social Networks ,
Title VII ,
Unions
North Carolina’s Retaliatory Employment Discrimination Act (REDA) prohibits employers from taking retaliatory action against employees on the basis of workers’ compensation, OSHA, wage and hour, and other state labor law...more
7/22/2019
/ Adverse Employment Action ,
Anti-Retaliation Provisions ,
Appeals ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Employment Litigation ,
OSHA ,
State Labor Laws ,
Statute of Limitations ,
Summary Judgment ,
Title VII ,
Wage and Hour
The Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) provides federal whistleblower protections against retaliation for employees of publicly held companies who complain about fraudulent activities. However, not all employee complaints are protected...more
On June 3, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously resolved a split among federal appellate courts dealing with the question of whether Title VII’s requirement that plaintiffs file an administrative charge with the Equal...more
6/17/2019
/ 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
When employers establish internal forums for employee comments, they may not anticipate that employees will use this as an opportunity to criticize the company and management. Employers also may not realize that such...more
Successful women have long been the subject of rumors that promotions or other career advancements were the result of their “sleeping their way to the top.” Earlier this month, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals (which...more
In its Cleveland v. Policy Mgmt. Syst. decision, the U.S. Supreme Court said that an application for Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) benefits does not automatically kill a plaintiff’s contemporaneous assertion...more
An African-American employee comes into work early one day, with plans to leave earlier than originally scheduled. When he is informed that his vehicle is being serviced and is not immediately available, he blows up at the...more
In last year’s Epic Systems decision, the U.S. Supreme Court held that the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA) allows mandatory arbitration agreements that preclude class or collective action claims. In other words, a party to the...more
5/6/2019
/ Ambiguous ,
Appeals ,
Arbitration ,
Arbitration Agreements ,
Class Arbitration ,
Consent ,
Epic Systems Corp v Lewis ,
Federal v State Law Application ,
Jurisdiction ,
Lamps Plus Inc v Varela ,
Motion to Compel ,
Preemption ,
Reversal ,
SCOTUS
The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to settle deep divisions between federal appellate courts on the question of whether an employee’s or applicant’s sexual orientation or gender identity are protected under Title VII’s sex...more
In recent months, EmployNews has reported on a series of federal appellate decisions dealing with administrative prerequisites for filing lawsuits claiming employment discrimination. Some courts have stated that an EEOC...more
Employees who believe they have been paid less based on their gender have two federal legal remedies. They can pursue claims under Title VII and under the Equal Pay Act (EPA). While the two laws have somewhat different legal...more
In addition to the typical reasonableness argument and other defenses against the enforcement of employment noncompetition covenants, in some cases courts will invalidate these agreements based on a public policy argument....more
Over the past decade, federal courts have gradually reduced the evidentiary burden necessary for a plaintiff to reach a jury trial on claims involving sexual or racial harassment. The relevant legal standard calls for the...more
Formal employment contracts can be for a specific term or may be terminated by one or both parties under certain conditions. When the agreement has no set term or can be ended by either party at any time, it is considered...more
One of the most important developments in employment law over the past several years has been the expansion by some federal courts of Title VII’s sex discrimination prohibitions to encompass sexual orientation and gender...more
In a recent EmployNews article, we reported on a federal appellate circuit split over how courts should dispose of employment discrimination suits where the plaintiff fails to file an EEOC charge within the required statutory...more
2/26/2019
/ Appeals ,
Charging Party ,
Employment Discrimination ,
Employment Litigation ,
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) ,
Filing Deadlines ,
Jurisdiction ,
Public Employees ,
Remand ,
Retaliation ,
Reversal ,
Title VII
Most employers know that an employee does not have to ask for Family and Medical Leave by name in order to fall under the FMLA’s protections. At what point, however, does the employee’s disclosure of a medical condition...more
In some situations, developing a creative approach toward overtime pay can cost the employer more than if it had simply paid time and one-half overtime in the first place. On February 8, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals...more
2/20/2019
/ Appeals ,
Class Action ,
Damages ,
Department of Justice (DOJ) ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) ,
Fluctuating Workweek ,
Jury Verdicts ,
Minimum Salary ,
Pay Rates ,
Unpaid Overtime ,
Wage and Hour