The Briefing – Late Night, Early Dismissal: The Santos-Kimmel Copyright Case
(Podcast) The Briefing – Late Night, Early Dismissal: The Santos-Kimmel Copyright Case
Fifth Circuit Affirms District Court’s Striking of Class Allegations
Eighth Circuit Reverses Dismissal of Putative Class Claims
Nota Bene Episode 98: The U.S. Supreme Court’s Mark on U.S. Antitrust Law for 2020 with Thomas Dillickrath and Bevin Newman
Class Action Suit Against Instagram for New Terms of Service Dismissed
SkyWest Airlines, Inc., was justified in discharging a deaf ramp agent because his inability to hear or effectively communicate posed a “direct threat” to the safety of himself and others, the U.S. District Court for the...more
We often hear claims from employees who threaten to sue their employer for creating a “hostile work environment.” When we dig into the complaints, often the employee is alleging that their manager is mean or unfair to them,...more
When an employer presents a separation agreement and release to an employee out of work for medical reasons, questions sometimes arise regarding that person’s ability to understand and competently execute the document. If an...more
Over the last several years, business-to-business “no-hire” and “no-poach” agreements have come under legal attack, including through enforcement actions by the Federal Trade Commission and criminal prosecutions by the...more
Last week, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit in Boston dismissed the appeal of a group of Whole Foods employees who were disciplined for wearing face masks with the phrase “Black Lives Matter” at work. In Frith...more
The U.S. Supreme Court has made clear that federal courts will not serve as a super HR department for employees who complain about unpleasant work conditions. Every worker is expected to tolerate a certain level of obnoxious...more
On April 19, 2022, in Bouziotis v. Iron Bar, LLC, the New Jersey Appellate Division upheld a trial court’s dismissal of a former bartender’s hostile work environment and gender discrimination claims partly on the grounds that...more
On March 23, 2022, the California Court of Appeal for the Fourth District in Estrada v. Royalty Carpet Mills, Inc., ruled that courts do not have authority to strike a claim under the Private Attorneys General Act (“PAGA”)...more
Executive Summary: On March 7, 2022, a sharply divided panel of the Second Circuit (covering New York, Connecticut, and Vermont) addressed the question of what a Title VII plaintiff must claim to adequately plead the...more
The federal Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) Act requires employers to provide employees with 60 days advance notice of a plant closing or mass layoff. On Tuesday in an unreported decision, the Fourth...more
In a new opinion from the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, Maner v. Dignity Health, the plaintiff was a male design engineer who was laid off due to performance and budget cut issues. He alleged that he had been discriminated...more
Under the Americans with Disabilities Act, employers are required to consider reassignment to an existing vacant position as a last ditch form of reasonable accommodation for an employee unable to return to their previous...more
Concluding that a highly publicized lawsuit challenging Houston Methodist Hospital’s mandatory vaccination policy failed to state viable legal claims and misrepresented certain facts, federal Judge Lynn Hughes dismissed the...more
In its Oncale decision, the U.S. Supreme Court recognized that same-sex sexual harassment violates Title VII’s sex discrimination prohibition. In that case, the court said that plaintiffs can demonstrate same-sex harassment...more
A California court just struck a second blow to the lawsuit brought by the wife of a California construction worker who alleged that her husband contracted COVID-19 from his workplace and then spread it to her. We previously...more
If disabled employees are no longer able to perform the essential functions of their job even with reasonable accommodation, under the Americans with Disabilities Act the employer must consider transferring the workers to an...more
On February 5, a federal court in Massachusetts entered an order dismissing Title VII claims brought against Whole Foods by a number of employees who were disciplined for wearing masks or other items supportive of the Black...more
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
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
Under the federal Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act (USERRA), employers are prohibited from taking adverse employment actions against employees because they are servicemembers or are obligated to...more
Employers, you see this movie all too often. You tolerate, and then ultimately discharge, a poor-performing employee who displays a bad attitude. Unfortunately, supervisors have not documented the employee’s prior instances...more
A New York federal court recently reinforced the limited geographic scope of the New York City Human Rights Law, a city law which provides broader anti-discrimination and anti-retaliation protections to employees than the New...more
According to the Americans with Disabilities Act, employers may only require employees to submit to medical exams or inquiries when there is a business necessity for determining the employee’s ability to perform the essential...more
Job-protected leave continues to be the most common accommodation requested by employees under the Americans with Disabilities Act. For employers, the question remains at what point does the amount of work missed end the...more
It was just a matter of time. After the Supreme Court cleared the way for businesses to use class waivers with their employees and contractors with the Epic Systems ruling this past May, many observers expected that the...more