Over the past several years, our practice has seen a marked increase in the number of employee accommodation requests that involve remote work. As communications technologies have improved, these employees regularly contend...more
According to the Americans with Disabilities Act, employers may only require employees to submit to medical exams or inquiries when there is a business necessity for determining the employee’s ability to perform the essential...more
2/12/2019
/ Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) ,
Appeals ,
Corporate Counsel ,
Dismissals ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Employment Litigation ,
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) ,
Hiring & Firing ,
Medical Examinations ,
Reasonable Accommodation ,
Reversal
Plaintiffs can bring employment discrimination claims under federal civil rights laws using one of two theories. Disparate treatment claims require the plaintiff to produce evidence of intent to discriminate due to a...more
On January 11, the U.S. Supreme Court accepted an appeal of a Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals decision dealing with the administrative prerequisites for a plaintiff to file suit against an employer under Title VII and related...more
1/25/2019
/ Administrative Procedure ,
Appeals ,
Certiorari ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) ,
Exhaustion Doctrine ,
Federal Rules of Civil Procedure ,
Fort Bend County Texas v Davis ,
Jurisdiction ,
SCOTUS ,
Split of Authority ,
Title VII
In a highly publicized incident during the 2016 presidential election, a Trump campaign staff worker claimed that the North Carolina campaign director threatened him with a pistol on the way to a campaign event. The worker...more
1/18/2019
/ Appeals ,
Assault ,
Donald Trump ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Employment Litigation ,
Firearms ,
Independent Contractors ,
Negligence ,
Political Campaigns ,
Vicarious Liability ,
Workplace Violence
Perhaps the top priority of the Trump-appointed National Labor Relations Board has been to reverse its predecessor’s decision in Browning-Ferris. This decision expanded the traditional notion of joint employment, giving the...more
Job-protected leave continues to be the most common accommodation requested by employees under the Americans with Disabilities Act. For employers, the question remains at what point does the amount of work missed end the...more
In its 2012 Hosanna-Tabor decision, the U.S. Supreme Court recognized a “ministerial” exemption to federal civil rights laws. It allows religious employers – without being subjected to claims of discrimination – to make...more
In recent years, federal courts have increasingly been called upon to decide whether employers must provide accommodations relating to disabled employees’ commutes to and from work. The EEOC and some federal courts have...more
Under the Occupational Safety and Health Act, companies are responsible for preventing their employees from being exposed to safety violations. For years, OSHA has also asserted that a company can be held responsible for...more
Earlier this year, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission persuaded the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals that a funeral home’s termination of a transgender employee violated Title VII’s prohibition against sex...more
11/5/2018
/ Appeals ,
Department of Justice (DOJ) ,
Discrimination ,
Employment Litigation ,
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) ,
Gender Identity ,
Hiring & Firing ,
Sexual Orientation Discrimination ,
Title VII ,
Transgender ,
Trump Administration
Many employers rely on the fluctuating workweek (FWW) method to reduce their overtime obligations. FWW allows employers to pay a fixed salary and a half-time overtime premium to employees whose working hours significantly...more
Section 14(b) of the National Labor Relations Act specifically authorizes state governments to adopt right-to-work statutes that prohibit compulsory union membership as a condition of employment. Two weeks ago, the Seventh...more
Over the past decade federal courts have demonstrated a decreasing willingness to tolerate the use of racist language in the workplace. In repeated circumstances, courts have found even a single use of a racial slur...more
Employers in the hospitality industry continue to face class and collective action lawsuits based on alleged violations of minimum wage requirements for tipped workers. Most of this litigation involves interpretation of the...more
Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 protects employees from workplace harassment. As most employers know, these protections apply not only to behavior by co-workers and supervisors but also to harassment by customers,...more
In 2012, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission issued an Enforcement Guidance dealing with employer use of criminal background checks in the hiring process. The agency concluded that widespread use of such checks...more
The Americans with Disabilities Act sets forth the conditions under which employers can require medical examinations as a condition of hire. Last month, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals held that an employer violated the...more
9/12/2018
/ Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) ,
Appeals ,
Conditional Job Offers ,
Corporate Counsel ,
Disability Discrimination ,
Employment Litigation ,
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) ,
Hiring & Firing ,
Job Applicants ,
Medical Examinations ,
Screening Procedures
Most employers understand that with appropriate disclaimers, they have the right to monitor employee use of the company’s electronic communication systems. With that said, unhappy employees continue to attempt to use federal...more
Plaintiffs who want to file lawsuits alleging discrimination under federal civil rights laws such as Title VII must first file an administrative charge with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission before proceeding to...more
On occasion, we read case reports that make us wonder why an employer litigates a claim that appears to be based on rigid adherence to work rules that do not make a whole lot of sense. A recent example is a decision from the...more
In its 1998 Oncale decision, the U.S. Supreme Court recognized that same-sex sexual harassment can violate Title VII’s gender discrimination prohibitions. However, the court noted that in order to demonstrate violation of the...more
When an employer moves for summary dismissal of a plaintiff’s employment discrimination or harassment claim, it must show that there is no genuine issue of material fact in dispute, thereby allowing the judge to make a...more
The Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals last month affirmed a criminal conviction and $500,000 penalty assessed against a construction company accused of failing to follow fall protection rules, leading to the death of an...more
Under Title VII, employers are generally strictly liable for harassing conduct by supervisors. In its Faragher and Ellerth decisions, the U.S. Supreme Court developed a limited defense for employers accused of supervisor...more
8/1/2018
/ Anti-Harassment Policies ,
Appeals ,
Dismissals ,
Employee Handbooks ,
Employee Training ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Harassment ,
Remand ,
Retaliation ,
Reversal ,
Sexual Harassment ,
Supervisors ,
Title VII