It takes a lot to establish what the law considers a hostile work environment. A former warehouse manager learned this lesson the hard way when a federal judge dismissed her complaint with prejudice before she even got the chance to take any discovery. Here are the facts of the case…
Earlier this year, President Biden signed the Ending Forced Arbitration of Sexual Assault and Sexual Harassment Act of 2021. The law allows victims of sexual assault or sexual harassment to litigate their claims in court even if they signed an arbitration agreement. At the end of last month, a bipartisan…
Does the spike in remote work arrangements over the past few years mean the end of wacky sexual harassment cases? Yeah, right! Although, in fairness, the unique facts of this case long pre-date the pandemic. This one involves a female plaintiff, a professor at a university, who claimed that the…
The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission caught a whiff, sued the employer in December, and just announced a $361,000 settlement for seven current and former female employees. So, here’s what supposedly happened, according to the EEOC’s press release. According to the EEOC’s suit, [the company’s founder, owner and president ……
Over the weekend, I caught up on a few older cases I had intended to blog about earlier. The one today on which I’ll focus has some “disturbing facts.” At least that’s how one of the Fifth Circuit judges deciding the case viewed them: [The plaintiff] is a firefighter. But…
This case involves a plaintiff who worked as a part-time bartender who worked for a bar in New Jersey. She claimed that her supervisor created a hostile work environment by calling the plaintiff names “used to describe a person with an oversized posterior.” (The court deemed it unnecessary to identify…
As I sit here on vacation cleaning out some of the older cases from my Google Drive, I came across this Fifth Circuit decision about which I meant to blog a while ago. It’s about a baccarat dealer who had to deal with a customer making sexually charged gestures, remarks…
What a Friday trifecta! The only thing better that could come in threes would be a gallon of Neapolitan ice cream — with chocolate instead of strawberry and vanilla. Beards up! Masks down. Speaking of threes, the Philadelphia 76ers have been flashing championship form since the arrival of James Harden…
On Tuesday, I warned you that your company’s arbitration agreements for sexual harassment claims might not survive February intact. Folks, they may not make it to the Super Bowl. On Monday night, the House voted 335-97 to pass the Ending Forced Arbitration of Sexual Assault and Sexual Harassment Act of…
Back in the Summer, during one of my rare deviations from blogging about COVID-19, I slipped in a post about a bipartisan effort in Congress to end the forced arbitration of sexual assault and sexual harassment claims. Six months later, there are some real signs that this Bill will make…