Not every workplace conflict that creates turbulence makes it to a jury. This one didn’t. The employer’s investigation held up under the honest-belief doctrine. Continue reading
A recent Southern District of New York decision is being described as “AI destroys privilege.”
That’s not what the court held. But employers using consumer AI tools in connection with employment decisions should pay attention. Continue reading
Remote work policies are tightening. But the Americans with Disabilities Act did not disappear when companies decided the office feels collaborative again.
Last week, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission issued federal-sector guidance on telework accommodations for employees with disabilities. Although written for federal agencies under the Rehabilitation Act, that statute incorporates ADA standards. So if you are a private employer navigating return-to-office mandates, this guidance is directly relevant. Continue reading
COVID vaccination mandates may be behind us, but the lawsuits they generated are still shaping how courts analyze religious accommodation under Title VII. This Third Circuit decision is a reminder that an accommodation can still be challenged when it allegedly creates a new burden. Continue reading
Employees do not need to use legal buzzwords to be protected from retaliation. But they do need to complain about the right thing.
General workplace grievances are not the same as opposing unlawful discrimination, and courts continue to enforce that distinction. Continue reading
Constructive discharge is a high bar. But an ultimatum, delivered the wrong way and on the wrong timeline, can be enough to clear it.
That was the lesson from a recent federal court decision involving a pregnant employee who was told she could either keep working under at-will conditions or take six weeks of pay and leave immediately. The employer framed it as a choice. The court said a jury could see it as no choice at all. Continue reading
When employees say, “You helped him when he was injured but refused to help me,” it sounds like discrimination. It also sounds like a failure-to-accommodate dispute. A recent Ninth Circuit decision shows why that framing matters, and why getting it wrong can sink the case before it ever reaches a jury. Continue reading
Stop me if you’ve heard this before: it’s the Monday after the Super Bowl, an employee with approved intermittent FMLA leave asks for a personal day, gets denied, switches to FMLA, and later finds himself terminated for “abuse.”
That is not a hypothetical. It is essentially what happened in a recent decision out of the Southern District of West Virginia, where a federal court refused to throw out an employee’s FMLA retaliation claim and sent the case to a jury. Continue reading
Me? I probably would not tell the EEOC that I removed a Black employee from work because of her “introduction of race” into the workplace. Especially after she complained about race discrimination triggered by a question about attending a Black Lives Matter protest.
But that is exactly what happened here.
And it is exactly why the employer lost on retaliation at summary judgment. Continue reading
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