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
When a disabled employee requests an accommodation under the Americans with Disabilities Act, this triggers an interactive process whereby both parties share information and work to determine if a reasonable and effective...more
California often acts as the nation’s laboratory for employment laws that are eventually adopted by other states or even the federal government. Earlier this month, the California Senate passed a measure that would sharply...more
6/27/2025
/ Algorithms ,
Artificial Intelligence ,
Employee Rights ,
Employment Discrimination ,
Hiring & Firing ,
Job Applicants ,
Machine Learning ,
New Legislation ,
Pending Legislation ,
Proposed Legislation ,
State Labor Laws
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
Last year, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a decision in Muldrow v. City of St. Louis that has resulted in profound changes to when employees can claim discrimination relating to job decisions that do not appear to have much...more
6/20/2025
/ Anti-Discrimination Policies ,
Employee Rights ,
Employee Training ,
Employment Discrimination ,
Employment Litigation ,
Human Resources Professionals ,
Lateral Transfers ,
Muldrow v City of St Louis ,
Risk Management ,
SCOTUS ,
Supervisors ,
Title VII
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
On May 20, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission announced that it will no longer provide funding to state and local EEO agencies for purposes of investigating or prosecuting discrimination charges based on allegations...more
Last week, a federal district court in Texas granted summary judgment to the State of Texas in a lawsuit challenging portions of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s workplace harassment guidance dealing with...more
Recently, we have seen an unusual spike in client situations involving legal claims associated with discipline or discharge of employees who engage in threatening or disruptive behavior in the workplace....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
On Wednesday, President Donald Trump signed an executive order barring federal agencies from investigating or prosecuting employment discrimination using the disparate impact concept. Most discrimination claims allege that an...more
4/25/2025
/ Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) ,
Disparate Impact ,
Employment Discrimination ,
Employment Litigation ,
Enforcement Actions ,
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) ,
Executive Orders ,
Government Agencies ,
Government Investigations ,
Protected Class ,
Title VII ,
Trump Administration ,
Workplace Investigations
Recently we had a client pose an interesting question about providing accommodations to disabled temporary workers. A temp agency referred a worker to its client, but advised the client that the worker had requested certain...more
4/18/2025
/ Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) ,
Data Privacy ,
Data-Sharing ,
Employment Discrimination ,
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) ,
Joint Employers ,
PHI ,
Privacy Laws ,
Reasonable Accommodation ,
Staffing Agencies ,
Temporary Employees
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
Since 1973, federal courts reviewing claims of employment discrimination have used a framework first established by the U.S. Supreme Court’s McDonnell Douglas decision. Under this framework, plaintiffs must show a prima facie...more
The Americans with Disabilities Act prohibits employers from asking most applicants questions about their medical history before a conditional offer of employment is made....more
Nature supposedly abhors a vacuum, but does this principle apply to workplace discrimination, worker safety, and other areas of employment and labor law?...more
In the wake of President Donald Trump’s withdrawal last month of an executive order that required larger federal contractors to create and implement affirmative action plans intended to increase the participation of women and...more
2/14/2025
/ Affirmative Action ,
Department of Labor (DOL) ,
Diversity and Inclusion Standards (D&I) ,
Employment Discrimination ,
Employment Policies ,
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) ,
Executive Orders ,
Federal Contractors ,
Human Resources Professionals ,
Private Sector ,
Title VII ,
Trump Administration
During his first week in office, President Trump revoked an executive order that required larger federal contractors to create and implement affirmative action plans intended to increase the participation of women and...more
On Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in a case that could have significant impacts on employee retiree medical insurance plans. In Stanley v. City of Sanford, a retired city employee alleges that Sanford’s...more
When reviewing an employee’s request for accommodations under the Americans with Disabilities Act, employers sometimes develop tunnel vision when deciding whether the claimed medical condition constitutes a protected ADA...more
1/17/2025
/ Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) ,
Appellate Courts ,
Corporate Counsel ,
Disability Discrimination ,
Employee Rights ,
Employment Discrimination ,
Employment Litigation ,
Mental Health ,
PTSD ,
Reasonable Accommodation ,
Reproductive Healthcare Issues
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
With the transition to the new administration in Washington taking place later this month, how could this change affect the enforcement priorities of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission? These priorities shift every...more
With the election quickly approaching, we are already receiving questions from employers involving concerns over arguments and disruptions in the workplace resulting from political disagreements. We hoped that the contentious...more