Of all the hills on which an employer should plant its flag to defend, this is not the one. The Americans with Disabilities Act requires an employer to provide reasonable accommodation to qualified individuals with disabilities, except when such accommodation would cause an undue hardship. The undue hardship burden is…
Articles Posted in Discrimination and Unlawful Harassment
The EEOC has released its updated enforcement playbook. And I have a copy.
Want to see it? Check out the Strategic Enforcement Plan (SEP) for Fiscal Years 2024 –2028 that the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) released yesterday. It contains the EEOC’s subject matter priorities for the next several years. But, if your attention span for these things isn’t tip-top, I can…
Can we fire an employee who complains about discrimination and is dead wrong?
I mean, sure. It’s a free country. This isn’t Communist Russia. But if your company is concerned about a subsequent retaliation claim, read on. Today’s lesson comes courtesy of this Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals decision. The plaintiffs brought gender discrimination (equal pay) and retaliation claims after the defendants terminated…
The EEOC and DOL are teaming up to enforce federal employment law
Chances are, if one of your employees complained externally about discrimination, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission was all up in your company’s business. Perhaps your business has had the not-so-good fortune of undergoing a Fair Labor Standards Act or Family and Medical Leave Act audit from the U.S. Department…
No, getting fired after telling a supervisor you are pregnant is not retaliation. Or is it?
No, it isn’t. I know this because, among other things, I read this Fifth Circuit decision last night after the Philadelphia Eagles beat the New England Patriots. The plaintiff, a pharmacy technician, was pregnant when her employer hired her. Then, she chose to disclose her pregnancy to her supervisor a…
The employee who claimed she was drugged, raped, and blackmailed by a supervisor LOST her discrimination lawsuit. HOW?!?
From recent memory, I can’t recall a case with more egregious allegations of sexual harassment. One of the plaintiffs in this Fifth Circuit decision I read last night alleged that soon after a staffing company placed her with a new employer, a female supervisor began sexually harassing her, culminating with…
Let’s revisit whether morbid obesity is a disability (and why, sometimes, it may not matter).
In today’s blog post, we’re doubling up on the employment law lessons. It’s a two for Tuesday Thursday! What inspired this selfless act from the publisher of a free employment law blog? I read this recent federal court decision about an employee who alleged that his employer discriminated against him…
Court re-orders 8 hours of religious-liberty training for an employer’s lawyers; says they need it “direly.”
Last month, following an airline’s loss in a religious bias lawsuit brought by a former employee, a Texas federal judge issued a scathing 29-page decision in which he ordered the airline to have three of its lawyers complete 8 hours of religious-liberty training each. Read this post if you want more…
I know when you can start filing EEO-1 Component 1 Data. Here’s a hint: 🎃🍬🍫
Yes, soon after I start recycling old blog posts next month about the liability risks that employees and their poor costume choices present for employers, all private-sector employers with 100 or more employees and federal contractors with 50 or more employees meeting specific criteria can start submitting demographic workforce data,…
Another employer learns the hard way that it’s better to hire slow and fire fast
A company fired one of its employees just ten days after learning about his disability. Although the proximity between the two doesn’t confirm that the employee’s disability motivated the employer’s decision, some other vital factors led a federal appellate court to overrule a lower court’s decision in favor of the…