Yesterday, several news outlets reported that Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer will retire at the end of this term. President Bill Clinton appointed Justice Breyer in 1994. Justice Breyer sided with OSHA and HHS in the vaccine mandate cases earlier this month. Indeed, Breyer is considered one of the more…
Image Credit: finger pointing by BomSymbols from the Noun Project While nerds like me were flooding LinkedIn with status updates about Sixth Circuit this and OSHA ETS that, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission was hosting a secret “virtual dialogue” with the employer Illuminati about retaliation updating its COVID-19 Technical…
Speech dialogue balloon by icon 54 from the Noun Project Yesterday, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL), and the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) announced a joint initiative to raise awareness about retaliation issues when workers exercise their protected labor rights. The EEOC…
Image Credit: Photofunia.com Retaliation is the number one employment claim that workers pursue. Prevailing, however, is not that easy. To establish a claim of retaliation, an employee must produce enough evidence for a reasonable jury to conclude that (1) s/he engaged in a statutorily protected activity; (2) the employer took…
Image Credit: MaxPixel.net A white employee complains in writing that a colleague called his biracial grand-niece a “monkey” and texted him racially offensive comments about his coworkers. Within months, the employer fired the complainant. Is this retaliation? A federal court in Pennsylvania said no. It reasoned that while Title VII…
Image Credit: Piqsels.com (CC0 public domain license) Let’s answer one of the most common questions that I receive when I speak at HR events. The answer is yes, according to this recent federal court decision. I’ll explain why in a bit, but let’s start with the unique facts. The plaintiff…
Image by Please Don’t sell My Artwork AS IS from Pixabay When an employee sues for retaliation after complaining about discrimination, he must prove that he suffered “a materially adverse action” for doing so. Usually, that amounts to discharges, demotions, refusals to hire, refusals to promote, and reprimands. But, how…
forever by priyanka from the Noun Project Sometimes it’s easy to lose the forest for the trees. Last night, after uploading the recording of yesterday’s CDC Face Mask Zoom to The Employer Handbook YouTube Channel, I read this recent Fifth Circuit opinion. It involves a transgender employee suing a former employer…
Alexas_Fotos on Pixabay If I felt a little snarkier, I would have gone with this instead of the confused emoji. No, I’m pretty sure that’s not how the Americans with Disability Act (ADA) works. Under the ADA, it’s just as unlawful to retaliate as it is to discriminate. A plaintiff…
Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay Rarely — and by “rarely,” I mean usually — I’ll have an employer client ask me about countersuing an employee that has just sued the company. First, you’re probably just throwing good money after bad. But, I generally don’t debate this with my more…