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How do we help our employee who tells us she has early-onset Alzheimer’s...
Hopefully, your business never has to address a situation where an employee is suffering from progressive memory loss and cognitive decline. But, suppose one of your employees informs you that they...
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Here are four ways to BOTCH a sexual harassment investigation
Last month, I told you that an employer’s response to a harassment complaint doesn’t need to be perfect. Just ok may do. That’s because an employer that learns about sexual harassment needs to respond...
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In January, a 78-year-old receptionist was named “Employee of the Year.” In...
This sounds like something that might interest the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Oh, wait. Would you look at this EEOC press release? It seems her employer may have engaged in age and...
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This Employee Relations Department redeemed itself (sort of).
Earlier in the week, I shared four ways to BOTCH a sexual harassment investigation. My “muse” was an Employee Relations Department that caught the attention of the EEOC for its alleged poor handling...
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It’s 2024 and federal law still does not protect medical marijuana users from...
Historically, federal courts have determined that the Americans with Disabilities Act does not protect individuals with disabilities with valid medical marijuana prescriptions who lose their jobs for...
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There’s one state where bringing a sexual harassment claim is much easier...
In most places, a plaintiff who claims that their former employer sexually harassed them must establish that the conduct to which they were subjected was severe or pervasive enough to alter the...
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145,000 reasons not to tell an employee they have “old-timers disease.”
Also, it is a bad idea to give that same employee a “retire-or-be-fired” ultimatum shortly after they return from bypass heart surgery. Am I making this stuff up? When have you known me to do that?...
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An employee who wanted religious exception for the COVID-19 vaccine got...
I’ll bet nowhere on your HR job description is there anything about serving as the religion police. But during the pandemic, some companies were pretty persnickety when considering employee requests...
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Can employers ban workers from wearing Black Lives Matter insignia to protest...
Photo by Brett Sayles: https://www.pexels.com/photo/slogan-black-lives-matter-on-black-board-4665903/ Last week, the National Labor Relations Board decided that a NON-union employer cannot require...
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How do we help an employee who blurts obscenities and racial slurs to our...
Recently, I read a recent federal appellate court decision involving an employee with a rare form of Tourette Syndrome that caused him to use obscenities and racial slurs. While that could be dicey...
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Are we seeing a trend? More judges aren’t falling for spurious COVID-19...
Earlier this week, I wrote about a judge calling out an employee for trying to cast a personal choice to remain unvaccinated against COVID-19 as some deeply religious decision. Last night, I read...
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Should Mrs. Doubtfire have been paid overtime?
It’s not like I woke up in a cold sweat, fixated on this obscure bit of Fair Labor Standards Act minutiae. But I did read this Eleventh Circuit decision last night, which did posit whether “Julie...
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Instead of hiring a lawyer, a business owner ordered to pay wages used AI to...
A multi-year dispute over unpaid wages went from bad to a whole lot worse for a Midwest business owner when he decided to appeal a trial court ruling that he owed over $300k in wages, damages, and...
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The Employer Handbook Friday Zoom Happy Hour Returns on Friday, March 8 at...
The U.S. Department of Labor rules on analyzing and determining who is an employee or independent contractor under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) take effect on March 11, 2024. Has your business...
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An employer that fired an employee for a positive marijuana test may have...
Right or wrong, an honest belief may be all it takes to proffer a nondiscriminatory reason for an adverse employment action. Do you remember that employer that terminated 65 employees seeking FMLA...
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Can states legally ban “woke” training in the workplace?
In 2022, Florida passed The Individual Freedom Act. But most people know this law as the “Stop W.O.K.E. Act,” which stands for “Stop the Wrongs to our Kids and Employees.” Whatever we call it, the Act...
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Is it racist to falsely accuse someone of being a racist?
Let’s explore whether Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 protects employees against accusations of racism. The inspiration for today’s post comes from a recent Georgia federal court decision....
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Here’s what happens when a judge catches a plaintiff fabricating evidence of...
Spoiler alert: it often doesn’t end well for the plaintiff or their lawyer. For example, let’s discuss this Second Circuit decision in which a plaintiff had sued her employer and two of its employees,...
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A federal judge has nixed the NLRB’s proposed new joint-employer rule
On Friday evening, a Texas federal judge blocked a proposed National Labor Relations Board rule that would have made it much easier for employees to unionize when he determined that enforcing the...
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When an employee sues, what law applies when they’ve worked in two states?
Famartin, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons I read a recent NJ federal court decision where a plaintiff began working for the defendant in New Jersey but later requested and received a transfer to...
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Is complaining about a hostile work environment enough to support a...
(At least I didn’t say, “It depends.”) Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits employers from retaliating against employees who oppose a practice that Title VII forbids, such as...
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Employers must adjust employee performance standards to avoid penalizing...
Suppose one of your employees, a widget maker, takes leave under the Family and Medical Leave Act. As a widget maker, the employee has a monthly quota of 100 widgets. The FMLA does not require an...
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The Thirty-Two Hour Workweek Act, introduced this week in Congress, is...
The same week that the U.S. Department of Labor’s rules on analyzing and determining who is an employee or independent contractor under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) took effect, both houses of...
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Here’s how bad documentation can cost a company big bucks when a former...
Employment lawyers and human resources professionals regularly preach that managers must document employee performance issues as a best practice so that if/when that manager wants to terminate the...
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In rejecting an employee’s claim that DEI training fostered a hostile work...
Earlier this year, I wrote about a white employee in Colorado who claimed his former employer subjected him to a hostile work environment by requiring him to attend anti-harassment training. According...
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An employer settled claims it refused to accommodate a pregnant worker who...
“Miscarriages can be personally devastating. No one should have to choose between getting the pregnancy care they need and losing a job.” That quote comes from a senior U.S. Equal Employment...
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A new bill in congress would guarantee all workers get two weeks of paid time...
Yesterday, several House Democrats announced the introduction of the Protected Time Off (PTO) Act to guarantee all full-time workers access to at least ten paid days off from work each year. U.S....
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“March Madness” is ***checks notes*** not a serious health condition.
The NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament began yesterday. Last night, I read that the average worker will spend seven hours watching it, with 26 percent of Americans saying they’re prepared to skip work...
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Let’s get back to basics: FMLA notice requirements
Employees who want to take leave under the Family and Medical Leave Act must give at least 30 days advance notice if possible and practical. If 30 days’ notice is not practicable, for example, when...
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Generally, an employer’s duty to accommodate takes more than an employee...
In a recent Fourth Circuit decision, the plaintiff learned this lesson the hard way. The plaintiff, a lawyer who later earned a promotion to Town Manager, suffered from anxiety, depression, and high...
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“This case illustrates why the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) exists.”
Imagine being an employer-defendant and reading that sentence as the lede in a court’s summary judgment opinion. Ouch! But that’s precisely what an Indiana federal judge wrote about a defendant who...
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Folks, misgendering an employee can be severe and pervasive enough to create...
I’m going to tell you about a transgender man who worked for three years as a sergeant for a state prison. While working at the prison, he began the process of medically and socially transitioning to...
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Court to employers: Don’t wait too long to arbitrate employments claims
A recent federal appellate court decision is an important reminder to confirm early—not later—whether the employee suing your business signed an arbitration agreement. The plaintiff had signed an...
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Some complaints of sexual harassment aren’t protected at all
Suppose an employee gets fired after complaining about sexual harassment at work. If that person later claims retaliation, they will have to establish a nexus between the two events, and the complaint...
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Court to Labor Board: Your “misguided attempt to find a labor-law violation”...
Like The Rock laying the smack(eth) down on Cody Rhodes in a Chicago parking lot, a federal appellate court recently pummelled the National Labor Relations Board. Although to be clear, no one was...
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Must employers excuse workers with strong religious beliefs from...
After taking a few days off and rocking out in Seattle, I’m back to blogging about employment law. 🤘🤘🤘 Today, we pull back the curtain and reveal how the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission...
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Can employers legally favor transgender employees over cisgender employees?
The words “cisgender” or “non-transgender” employee appear nowhere in Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the federal workplace law that outlaws gender discrimination. But, according to a...
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Hair discrimination isn’t unlawful. But, firing a black employee because of...
Congress has considered legislation several times that would prohibit employers from discriminating based on an individual’s hair texture or hairstyle if that hair texture or that hairstyle is...
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When is an employer AUTOMATICALLY liable for a supervisor’s sexual harassment...
Often, an employer has affirmative defenses when an employee accuses a supervisor of sexual harassment. But Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 makes liability automatic in two ways. First,...
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Have you ever heard of an “intersectional” discrimination claim?
A white man filed a lawsuit against a company claiming that it denied him a high-six-figure executive position because of his race, age, and sex so that the company could search for more diverse...
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Man wins $1.5M discrimination verdict. Then the appellate court completely...
I want to tell you about an Army reservist whose employer investigated him for taking fraudulent leave. That investigation spawned a grand jury indictment for theft. The employee was booked, detained...
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The EEOC has issued its final rules on the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act. So,...
At long last, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), the federal agency tasked with enforcing the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act (PWFA), has issued a final rule to implement the new...
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Next week, the feds will vote on whether to ban most noncompetes
Yesterday, the Federal Trade Commission announced that it would hold a “special open Commission meeting” on April 23 to vote on whether to issue a proposed final rule that would prevent most employers...
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Yesterday, the Supreme Court cleared up when a job transfer may be...
Suppose an employer transfers an employee, and that employee believes that unlawful bias fueled the decision. Does that transfer have to significantly disadvantage that employee to give rise to a...
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Join us today at Noon ET for The Employer Handbook Zoom Happy Hour to discuss...
You can still register here to join us today, April 19, 2024, at Noon ET. Along with my partner, Amy Epstein Gluck, I will discuss the final rule that the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission...
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Can harassment of OTHERS help prove that a plaintiff endured a hostile work...
Have you ever heard of me-too evidence? Plaintiffs in discrimination cases may attempt to introduce me-too evidence to the jury to establish that the same harasser directed the same acts of...
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How did a white man convince a jury to award him over $10M for race and...
In 2013, a healthcare provider hired a white man—let’s call him plaintiff—as its Senior Vice President of Marketing and Communications. And he crushed it, receiving strong performance reviews and...
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It’s official. The feds plan to ban most employee noncompetes. But is this...
In January 2023, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) proposed a rule generally prohibiting employers from imposing noncompetes on their workers. In the following year and change, the federal agency...
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Let’s have another Zoom on Monday, 4/29/24, at Noon ET to address the FTC’s...
What a week! On the same day that the Federal Trade Commission announced its plan to ban most employee noncompetes, the U.S. Department of Labor proposed increase to the salary level for EAP overtime...
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17 states sue to block the EEOC from greenlighting abortion leave under the...
From the time it proposed regulations to implement the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act to when it issued a final rule earlier this month, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission received...
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