In order to claim discrimination under the Americans with Disabilities Act, employees must demonstrate that they could perform the essential functions of the job but were denied a reasonable accommodation. Some employers...more
3/11/2020
/ Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) ,
Appeals ,
Corporate Counsel ,
Disability Discrimination ,
Dismissals ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Employment Litigation ,
Essential Functions ,
Interactive Process ,
Popular ,
Reasonable Accommodation ,
Reversal
As previously reported in EmployNews, a number of states and municipalities have tried to address gender-based pay gaps by adopting legislation that prohibits employers from asking about pay history or setting starting...more
3/9/2020
/ Appeals ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Employment Litigation ,
En Banc Review ,
Equal Pay ,
Gender-Based Pay Discrimination ,
Job Applicants ,
Pay Equity Laws ,
Pay Gap ,
Remand ,
Salary/Wage History ,
Sex Discrimination ,
Wage and Hour
Some of the most frequent questions we receive from employers involve managing the performance of employees with medical issues. While employers understand their nondiscrimination obligations under the Americans with...more
3/6/2020
/ Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) ,
Appeals ,
Best Management Practices ,
Corporate Counsel ,
Disability Discrimination ,
Discipline ,
Dismissals ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Employment Litigation ,
Poor Job Performance ,
Summary Judgment
Many written employment agreements contain automatic renewal provisions that apply at the end of the contract’s term if either party does not provide notice of intent not to renew. When an employment agreement is silent on...more
From time to time, we encounter requests from employees for accommodations under the Americans with Disabilities Act that appear unrelated to the employee’s underlying medical condition. For example, an employee with a back...more
On January 1, 2020, a new California law could prevent employers in that state from requiring arbitration of employment claims brought under state law. The new law was prompted by stories revealed as a result of the #MeToo...more
12/13/2019
/ #MeToo ,
Corporate Counsel ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Employment Litigation ,
Federal Arbitration Act ,
Mandatory Arbitration ,
Mandatory Arbitration Clauses ,
New Legislation ,
Preemption ,
Sexual Harassment ,
State Law Claims
When companies change management, employees sometimes believe it is unfair to hold them to higher performance standards than those required by their former supervisors. When it comes to accommodations made to disabled...more
In order to state a claim of employment discrimination under federal civil rights laws, employees must demonstrate that they have been subjected to an adverse action. In most cases, the employee has been fired, demoted, or...more
The Americans with Disabilities Act not only protects persons with actual medical conditions but also those regarded by their employer as disabled, even if they are not. A new decision from the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals...more
If asked to describe the essential functions of a given job, most employers would include actually showing up to work as a critical component. In recent years the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has taken the position...more
The EEOC and federal courts have repeatedly said that employees seeking accommodations for disabilities under the ADA do not have to use any “magic words” to trigger the employer’s obligations. A recent decision from the...more
Employees who transition genders may ask their employer and co-workers to begin addressing them with names and pronouns associated with that different gender. On September 17, a federal district court in Maryland (which,...more
The Americans with Disabilities Act not only provides protections for disabled persons but also those “regarded as” having a disability, even if they are healthy. On September 12, the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals (which...more
Of all the questions we receive from employers, those involving suspected abuse of intermittent family and medical leave remain among the most frustrating and difficult to address. While only a minority of employees on...more
Under N.C. Gen. Stat. § 96-14.6, individuals are disqualified from receiving unemployment benefits if they are discharged due to misconduct associated with the work. On September 3, the North Carolina Court of Appeals issued...more
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
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
Here is a scenario we commonly face with clients: A poor-performing employee has not quite reached the point of termination. Just prior to a final decision on her employment, she goes to the Human Resources Department to...more
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
In employment discrimination cases, when the plaintiff makes out a prima facie claim of bias, the employer must articulate legitimate non-discriminatory reasons for the action. The plaintiff then has the ultimate burden of...more
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
Employees cannot sue under federal anti-discrimination laws for every perceived slight or workplace occurrence. In order to be actionable, the alleged employer conduct must rise to the level of an “adverse employment action.”...more
In his classic 1998 business book “Who Moved my Cheese?,” Spencer Johnson discussed the need for businesses and employees to focus on the need to adapt to changes in their industries. In our practice, we frequently see claims...more
7/12/2019
/ American Airlines ,
Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Employment Litigation ,
Essential Functions ,
Failure to Accommodate ,
Mergers ,
Reasonable Accommodation ,
Summary Judgment ,
Telecommuting ,
US Airways
The ADA Amendments Act of 2008 substantially expanded the definition of protected disabled persons under federal anti-discrimination laws. In most circumstances, employers do not spend much time arguing that the plaintiff is...more