Can you compel arbitration with an employee who is alleging sexual harassment? You may recall that in 2022, Congress enacted the Ending Forced Arbitration of Sexual Assault and Sexual Harassment Act (EFAA), which precludes...more
4/25/2025
/ #MeToo ,
Appeals ,
Arbitration ,
Arbitration Agreements ,
Discrimination ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Employment Discrimination ,
Employment Litigation ,
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) ,
Sex Discrimination ,
Sexual Harassment ,
Statutory Interpretation
In Title VII actions, plaintiffs have a limited amount of time to file a charge of discrimination (or a court can dismiss the case as untimely). In the case of Wells v. Texas Tech University, the timeliness dynamic was...more
3/11/2025
/ Adverse Employment Action ,
Discrimination ,
Employee Rights ,
Employees ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Employment Litigation ,
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) ,
Gender Discrimination ,
Retaliation ,
Sexual Harassment ,
Title VII
As the mainstream media has reported, President Trump is firing everyone he can (and maybe some he can’t) at the National Labor Relations Board. On day one, the president fired the NLRB’s general counsel, Jennifer Abruzzo, a...more
2/25/2025
/ Employee Rights ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Employment Litigation ,
Hiring & Firing ,
Labor Reform ,
Labor Regulations ,
NLRA ,
NLRB ,
Non-Compete Agreements ,
Trump Administration ,
Unions
At some point, every employer will need to investigate an employee’s complaint. An investigation is an important tool that employers can use to fix a workplace problem and minimize liability. Or, an investigation can create...more
1/31/2025
/ Anti-Retaliation Provisions ,
Corporate Counsel ,
Employee Misconduct ,
Employee Rights ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Employment Litigation ,
Employment Policies ,
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) ,
Investigations ,
Workplace Harassment Guidance ,
Workplace Safety
The federal Worker Adjustment Retraining Notification Act (the WARN Act), generally requires that employers give workers 60 days’ written notice of any plant closings or mass layoffs. If employers do not comply with this...more
1/8/2025
/ Back Pay ,
Bankruptcy Court ,
Compliance ,
Department of Labor (DOL) ,
Employees ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Employment Litigation ,
Layoffs ,
Notice Requirements ,
Risk Management ,
Unions ,
WARN Act
Most employers have gotten the hang of handling FMLA requests: Make sure the employee is eligible; get paperwork from the provider; and monitor the amount of time taken. Whether all supervisors are overjoyed with every...more
We have news on two fronts:
First, the FTC Rule -
As related to the Federal Trade Commission’s nationwide ban on noncompete agreements, the FTC has appealed the federal court injunction in Texas to the federal Fifth...more
10/25/2024
/ Employees ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Employment Litigation ,
Federal Bans ,
Federal Trade Commission (FTC) ,
Final Rules ,
Legislative Agendas ,
NLRB ,
NLRB General Counsel ,
Non-Compete Agreements ,
Regulatory Agenda
Here’s a refresher: Discriminating against a subclass of a sex (e.g., older women or black women) is still discrimination. In McCreight v. AuburnBank, the Eleventh Circuit clarified a few things for the lawyers related to the...more
9/26/2024
/ Age Discrimination ,
Civil Rights Act ,
Corporate Counsel ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Employment Litigation ,
Employment Policies ,
Enforcement Actions ,
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) ,
Hostile Environment ,
Retaliation ,
Sexual Harassment ,
Title VII
The top lawyer for the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) is ordering her subordinates to continue to seek injunctions against employers for alleged violations of the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), despite the...more
What happens when the NLRB asks a federal court to remand a case back to the board based on a new case holding to interpret the matter before it, the court does so, and then the board pulls a “bait and switch” to flat out...more
On Wednesday, July 3, a Texas federal court enjoined the Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) rule banning most noncompetes (the Noncompete Rule) and has stayed the implementation of the Noncompete Rule, but only as to the...more
7/9/2024
/ Appeals ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Employment Contract ,
Employment Litigation ,
Federal Bans ,
Federal Trade Commission (FTC) ,
Final Rules ,
Litigation Strategies ,
Non-Compete Agreements ,
Preliminary Injunctions ,
Texas
A National Labor Relations Board administrative law judge in San Francisco recently ruled that Amazon CEO Andy Jassy violated the National Labor Relations Act when he commented on labor unions through several media outlets....more
If an employer or coworker persistently uses a transgender worker’s wrong name or identified pronoun, can that constitute a hostile work environment in violation of Title VII? In Copeland v. Georgia Department of Corrections,...more
5/9/2024
/ Appeals ,
Bostock v Clayton County Georgia ,
Corporate Counsel ,
Discrimination ,
Employees ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Employment Litigation ,
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) ,
Gender Identity ,
Harassment ,
Hostile Environment ,
Remand ,
Retaliation ,
SCOTUS ,
Summary Judgment ,
Title VII ,
Transgender ,
Vacated
If you transfer an employee to a job with no loss in pay or title but the employee thinks it is less desirable, can that employee sue you for discrimination under Title VII? While it depends on the facts, in Muldrow v. St....more
5/2/2024
/ Adverse Employment Action ,
Civil Rights Act ,
Discrimination ,
Diversity and Inclusion Standards (D&I) ,
Employee Transfers ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Employment Discrimination ,
Employment Litigation ,
Gender Discrimination ,
Hiring & Firing ,
Lateral Transfers ,
Muldrow v City of St Louis ,
SCOTUS ,
Sex Discrimination ,
Title VII
Can you prevent your employees from handing out pro-union paraphernalia if they’re on a paid break? After brewing on the issue, the D.C. Circuit says no, backing baristas in the first of five National Labor Relations Board...more
Remember last year when we repeatedly posted about the Pregnant Worker Fairness Act (PWFA) and the PUMP Act telling you that the EEOC was going to have pregnancy discrimination on its radar? Recent activity from the EEOC...more
If an individual’s disability causes involuntary racist or profane utterances, what would a reasonable accommodation under the ADA look like? In Cooper v. Dolgencorp, LLC, the Sixth Circuit faced just such an inquiry....more
As we have been blogging during the Biden presidency, the National Labor Relations Board has become quite aggressive these days. The aggression toward employers has been shown in the types of conduct the Board finds to be...more
Someone who works in the home of their employer as a nanny or in another domestic service role is exempt from the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) wage requirements, right? Not according to Blanco v. Samuel, a recent 11th...more
Changes in supervision may result in fresh ways of doing things. Certain rules that were never fully enforced may now come to the forefront. Can a new supervisor’s radical change in a long-term employee’s performance rating...more
Nearly a year ago, we reported that the United States Supreme Court was planning to hear a case—Acheson Hotels v. Laufer—on whether “tester” plaintiffs in ADA accessibility cases have standing to sue, including in the...more
As this blog has consistently noted in the past, one of the most effective ways to combat unfounded allegations in the workplace is diligent record-keeping. Many employers have “point-based” disciplinary policies in which...more
1/9/2024
/ Absenteeism ,
Discrimination ,
Documentation ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Employment Litigation ,
Employment Policies ,
Notice Requirements ,
Race Discrimination ,
Racial Bias ,
Reporting Requirements ,
Termination
The EEOC has some new laws in its arsenal (i.e., the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act, the PUMP Act) and is likely to release new guidance on harassment. Keeping that in mind, we anticipate investigators will be interested in...more
2023 has brought many updates and changes to the legal landscape. Our blog posts have covered many of them, but you may not remember (or care to remember) them. Before moving on to 2024, let’s take a moment to review our top...more
12/29/2023
/ Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) ,
Coronavirus/COVID-19 ,
Department of Labor (DOL) ,
Employees ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Employment Litigation ,
Exemptions ,
Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) ,
Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) ,
Healthcare ,
Income Taxes ,
Over-Time ,
Paid Leave ,
Providing Urgent Maternal Protections for Nursing Mothers Act (“PUMP Act”) ,
Reasonable Accommodation ,
Regulatory Requirements ,
State and Local Government ,
State Labor Laws ,
Vaccinations
Everyone has been preparing for the recently enacted Pregnant Workers Fairness Act and the PUMP Act. Earlier this month the EEOC gave us another reason to make sure our policies are up to snuff. Frontier Airlines and the EEOC...more
12/15/2023
/ Breastfeeding ,
Employee Rights ,
Employees ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Employment Litigation ,
Employment Policies ,
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) ,
Lactation Accommodation ,
Pregnancy ,
Pregnancy Discrimination ,
Pregnant Workers Fairness Act ,
Providing Urgent Maternal Protections for Nursing Mothers Act (“PUMP Act”) ,
Reasonable Accommodation ,
Settlement