On July 17, 2024, the U.S. District for the Northern District of Texas rejected the State of Texas’s request that it vacate recent guidance from the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) on harassment and...more
7/26/2024
/ Anti-Harassment Policies ,
Bostock v Clayton County Georgia ,
Civil Rights Act ,
Corporate Counsel ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Employment Policies ,
Enforcement Guidance ,
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) ,
Gender Identity ,
Harassment ,
LGBTQ ,
Sexual Orientation Discrimination ,
Title VII
On July 17, 2024, the U.S. District for the Northern District of Texas rejected the State of Texas’s request that it vacate recent guidance from the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) on harassment and...more
7/26/2024
/ Anti-Harassment Policies ,
Bostock v Clayton County Georgia ,
Civil Rights Act ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Employment Policies ,
Enforcement Guidance ,
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) ,
Gender Identity ,
Harassment ,
LGBTQ ,
New Guidance ,
Pending Litigation ,
Sexual Orientation Discrimination ,
Title VII
On April 29, 2024, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) issued the final version of new workplace harassment guidance for employers, formally updating the EEOC’s position on the legal standards and employer...more
5/1/2024
/ Anti-Harassment Policies ,
Compliance ,
Corporate Counsel ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) ,
Gender Identity ,
New Guidance ,
Pregnancy ,
Protected Class ,
Race Relations ,
Sexual Orientation ,
Workplace Harassment Guidance
On April 17, 2024, the Supreme Court of the United States held that an employee challenging a job transfer in an unlawful employment discrimination claim under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 must show that the...more
On August 18, 2023, in Hamilton v. Dallas County, the full Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals upended a longstanding precedent, significantly broadening the types of adverse employment actions that could give rise to an...more
8/23/2023
/ Adverse Employment Action ,
Anti-Discrimination Policies ,
Appeals ,
Civil Rights Act ,
Commission on Human Rights ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Employment Discrimination ,
Employment Litigation ,
En Banc Review ,
Gender Discrimination ,
Precedential Opinion ,
Public Employees ,
Remand ,
Reversal ,
Terms and Conditions ,
Title VII ,
Wage and Hour ,
Work Schedules
Recent events have employers once again wondering if they do enough to address the risk of workplace violence. After a mass shooting, for example, businesses and other organizations sometimes look back with 20/20 hindsight...more
In the first ruling from a federal appellate court examining COVID-19–related layoffs and the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) Act, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals held in Easom v. US Well Services,...more
On March 24, 2022, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit reversed a district court’s Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6) dismissal for failure to state a claim on a pro se plaintiff’s hostile work environment...more
6/22/2022
/ Civil Rights Act ,
Dismissals ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Employment Litigation ,
Failure To State A Claim ,
Federal Rule 12(b)(6) ,
Federal Rules of Civil Procedure ,
Hostile Environment ,
Race Discrimination ,
Reversal ,
Slurs
As the COVID-19 vaccine becomes more readily available, employers are considering mandatory vaccination for their employees and in particular, how to respond to employee requests for accommodation, whether on the basis of...more
1/28/2021
/ Appeals ,
Civil Rights Act ,
Commission on Human Rights ,
Dismissals ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Employment Litigation ,
Employment Policies ,
Insubordination Policy ,
Religious Accommodation ,
Termination ,
Vaccinations
On August 6, 2019, in State of Texas v. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit ruled that the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) overstepped its limited rulemaking...more
8/9/2019
/ Administrative Procedure Act ,
Adverse Impact ,
Appeals ,
Business Necessity ,
Civil Rights Act ,
Criminal Background Checks ,
Criminal Records ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Enforcement Guidance ,
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) ,
Hiring & Firing ,
Job Applicants ,
Lack of Authority ,
National Origin Discrimination ,
Notice and Comment ,
Race Discrimination ,
Title VII
Despite broad-based support, the Texas Legislature failed to pass a law preempting the type of paid sick leave ordinances enacted in Austin, San Antonio, and most recently Dallas before the end of its regular session on May...more
6/7/2019
/ Employer Liability Issues ,
Employment Policies ,
Grace Period ,
Legislative Agendas ,
Local Ordinance ,
Notice Requirements ,
Paid Leave ,
Paid Sick Leave Act ,
Paid Time Off (PTO) ,
Preemption ,
State Constitutions ,
State Labor Laws ,
Unconstitutional Condition ,
Wage and Hour
In Delaronde v. Legend Classic Homes, Ltd., No. 17-20027 (January 18, 2018), the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed a district court’s denial of an employer’s post-verdict motion for judgment as a matter of law, finding...more
The Texas Court of Appeals for the Fourteenth District recently reversed and remanded a judgment in favor of an employer on an employee’s claim of retaliation under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). The court found there...more
In Bodle v. TXL Mortgage Corp., No. 14-20224 (June 1, 2015), the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals held that a generic, broad-form settlement release between an employer and two of its former employees did not bar those...more
Names play an important role for an employee who, in filing a charge of discrimination, must satisfy Title VII’s naming requirement. This is because an employee who fails to properly name defendants in a charge of...more
An opinion out of the Fourteenth Court of Appeals demonstrates why employers need to be weary of developing a practice of oral agreements in regards to compensation upon which at-will employees may detrimentally rely. The...more