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Articles Posted in Third Circuit Employment Law 101

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If a cyber-attack at work creates imminent risk of identity theft or fraud, your employees can sue you!

Think of all the personal, sensitive information that an individual shares with you just to have the opportunity to earn a living as an employee of your company. As part of onboarding, new employees provide their home address, social security number, bank and financial account numbers for direct deposit, insurance…

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How did a plaintiff with no lawyer convince a federal appellate court that he had a viable FMLA claim?

The surprise will quickly disappear once I share the facts from this recent Third Circuit decision. The plaintiff was a patient representative with a local hospital. On January 3, 2014, he reported to work amid a snowstorm. After his shift ended, the plaintiff slipped and fell while searching for a…

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If hiring managers say they are looking for “new blood,” are they guilty of age discrimination?

An HR employee claimed that her age motivated her employer’s decision not to select her for a Human Resources Talent Consultant (HRTC) position after the company restructured the HR Department. Why? Because decision-makers allegedly said on a conference call that they were looking for “fresh new blood” to fill the…

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This may become the biggest employment law decision of 2023

Image Credit: Photofunia.com After a ten-day vacation trip with my family (IYKYK) onboard the S.S. Blog Cruiser Royal Caribbean Adventure of the Seas, I’m back to the reality of practicing employment law and blogging about it. Today, let’s play some tunes as we gaze into the crystal ball and predict…

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Here’s another reason why enforcing a non-compete can be so darn expensive

I’ve litigated many battles between companies over trade secrets and non-competition and non-solicitation agreements. The tie that binds them all is that these cases are expensive to prosecute and defend. When these cases advance to court, most are about one thing: getting an injunction to stop a former employee from…

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Is lower co-worker morale reason enough to deny a religious accommodation?

Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits employment discrimination based on religion. This includes refusing to accommodate an employee’s sincerely held religious beliefs or practices unless the accommodation would impose an undue hardship. An “undue hardship” results in more than a de minimis cost to the employer.…

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Don’t ruin your arbitration agreements by doing this…

Some of you require your employees to sign agreements requiring them to arbitrate employment claims — other than claims of sexual harassment or abuse, of course. But what happens if your employees later sign another agreement — a severance agreement, for example — that doesn’t contain an arbitration provision? One…

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What REALLY happens when an employee doesn’t return completed FMLA paperwork?

medical form by Linseed Studio from the Noun Project I think we all need a break from the COVID-19 vaccination posts. So, let’s address your second-favorite HR topic: FMLA leave administration!!! Hey, put down that bottle! It’s only 8 am. I’ve got a not-so-hypothetical for you. Let’s say that you…

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Does federal law forbid discrimination based on interracial relationships? Two courts disagree.

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…

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That time when all the employment lawyers got paid and the litigants got zilch!

Image by Clker-Free-Vector-Images from Pixabay Just about the only folks guaranteed to get paid in an employment discrimination case are the lawyers. Employers generally pay the lawyers representing them by the hour. Conversely, employee-rights attorneys generally representing plaintiffs in these types of cases do so on a contingency basis, meaning…