Last Thursday, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission issued an expanded technical assistance Q&A on employment discrimination concerns associated with employers’ COVID-19 response efforts. The advisory does not make...more
Employers that are already perplexed by the long time it takes the EEOC to complete investigations will now have even longer to wait for the conclusion of discrimination charges. Earlier this week, the EEOC announced that due...more
In 2009 in response to the H1N1 outbreak, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission issued a publication titled Pandemic Preparedness in the Workplace and the Americans with Disabilities Act. On March 21, the EEOC updated...more
In recent years, federal courts have increasingly split over whether obesity in and of itself is a qualifying medical condition under the Americans with Disabilities Act. The EEOC and some courts have concluded that obesity...more
In 2007, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission filed suit against a trucking company, alleging a pattern and practice of sexual harassment affecting a class of 270 female employees. The district court dismissed the...more
In its decision last term in Epic Systems Corp. V. Lewis, the U.S. Supreme Court concluded that the National Labor Relations Act does not preclude the use of mandatory arbitration agreements in employment which prevent class...more
12/11/2019
/ Arbitration ,
Arbitration Agreements ,
Contract Terms ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Epic Systems Corp v Lewis ,
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) ,
Mandatory Arbitration Clauses ,
NLRA ,
NLRB ,
Publicly-Traded Companies ,
Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC)
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
When asked recently about the return of star quarterback Cam Newton, Carolina Panthers coach Ron Rivera responded that he will not play until he is 100 percent recovered from a foot injury. While fine for NFL players,...more
Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 provides specific time limitations for filing EEOC charges and subsequent lawsuits. What happens, however, if the employer and employee agree to shorten the period of time under which...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
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
It’s not unusual to see an employee terminated or disciplined for workplace harassment to in turn file a charge with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, alleging that the employer’s reasons for the move were pretext...more
In 2012, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission issued enforcement guidance on employers’ use of criminal background checks in the hiring process. The EEOC concluded that indiscriminate use of such checks has a disparate...more
8/14/2019
/ Administrative Procedure Act ,
Appeals ,
Background Checks ,
Criminal Background Checks ,
Disparate Impact ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Enforcement Guidance ,
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) ,
Hiring & Firing ,
Injunctions ,
Job Applicants
In a recent claim filed against one of our clients, an aggrieved employee alleged that a manager who was a former military officer had a preference for hiring and promoting people with military experience. The employee in...more
Last week, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission released instructions for employers required to file 2017 and 2018 pay information that includes a breakdown by demographics, referred to as Component 2 data. The...more
As previously reported in EmployNews, a federal court in Washington reversed an attempt by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to rescind regulations requiring certain employers to submit pay data broken down by...more
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
On June 3, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously resolved a split among federal appellate courts dealing with the question of whether Title VII’s requirement that plaintiffs file an administrative charge with the Equal...more
6/17/2019
/ Affirmative Defenses ,
Amended Complaints ,
Appeals ,
Charge-Filing Preconditions ,
Civil Rights Act ,
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) ,
Forfeiture ,
Fort Bend County Texas v Davis ,
Jurisdictional Requirements ,
Mandatory Claim-Processing Rules ,
Reaffirmation ,
Reasonable Accommodation ,
Religious Discrimination ,
Retaliation ,
Reversal ,
SCOTUS ,
Time-Barred Claims ,
Title VII ,
Waiver Rule ,
Wrongful Termination
In their recent regulatory agendas, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and U.S. Department of Labor indicated upcoming rulemakings that could have significant impacts on employer practices under the Americans with...more
As we have reported over the past several months, a federal district court that reinstated the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s pay data collection requirements has been considering the deadline for submittal of such...more
The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to settle deep divisions between federal appellate courts on the question of whether an employee’s or applicant’s sexual orientation or gender identity are protected under Title VII’s sex...more
In recent months, EmployNews has reported on a series of federal appellate decisions dealing with administrative prerequisites for filing lawsuits claiming employment discrimination. Some courts have stated that an EEOC...more
Last week, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission released information on charges filed with the agency in fiscal year 2018. Total charges declined to 76,418, the lowest number filed with the EEOC since 2006. ...more
As we have reported in recent EmployNews issues, a federal district court enjoined the Office of Management and Budget’s (OMB) attempt to reverse Obama-era regulations that modified the employer EEO-1 disclosure process to...more
In a recent EmployNews article, we reported a federal district court decision reinstating Obama-era changes to the annual EEO-1 information collection process, which would require larger employers to submit employee salary...more