As I type this post, I’m watching two of my kids — one dressed as Olaf; the other Elsa — yelling at each other to stop singing Frozen tunes. Now, they’re wrestling — I don’t remember that from the movie. For a snowman, that Olaf is pretty tough. Oh, damn! Parent of the year here has let it go — see what I did there — on too long.
brb…
Last September, for the first time ever, the EEOC sued two private employers for discriminating against employees who had transitioned from one gender to another.
One of those cases settled last week for $150K.
Yesterday, the other action survived the employer’s motion to dismiss the case. Continue reading
I intended to begin the week with a post about a company’s legal obligation to predict — yes, predict — an employee’s mental fitness for duty. Then, I started on a brief tangent on Ellen Pao, the former partner of a Silicon Valley venture capital firm, who just lost a highly-publicized gender discrimination claim against said former employer.
And a few hundred words later, that brief tangent became its own blog post — this one. (If you want a wild lawsuit brought by an airline captain who claimed that his former employer was negligent by failing to predict that he’d have a manic in-flight episode, come back tomorrow). Continue reading
I had every intention of watching the President address the Nation last night. I really did.
But, then I got sucked into the Director’s Cut of The Harlem Globetrotters on Gilligan’s Island, the one where the Washington Generals show up first and replace all the confetti with lice. Then poor Lovie Howell takes some shrapnel and, frankly, I didn’t realize that Thurston could order a hit squad so quickly to a remote Island.
By the time I remembered the SOTU, the Harlem Globetrotters were busting out a ladder — sorry, Krusty — and que sera.
Fortunately for me, and, by extension, you, the White House printed a copy of the SOTU, which I could cut and paste expertly analyze for you after the jump…
Because all the other blogs will say “paramour” or “lover” in the lede, and I need to remain relevant (or “down,” if you will) with my more trendy readers.
Over the weekend, I read this case in which a male plaintiff alleged discrimination because his supervisor was allegedly schtupping a female subordinate and treating her better.
(The court said “voluntary romantic affiliation,” but why say in three words, what you can say in one).
Terribly sorry about the confusion created by my sloppy use of possessive pronouns in today’s lede. The “his” wife refers to the employee’s wife. Otherwise, this post doesn’t make any sense, does it? (Don’t spend too much time contemplating the question, ok).
Yep, just another Tuesday at The Employer Handbook.
Click through for what should prove to be a cluster of a gender discrimination claim contain many valuable takeaways for proactive employers.
Sex sells. So, when 22 female cocktail servers at an Atlantic City casino pursued claims of discrimination based on their appearance, it came as little shock to me that the judge wasn’t buying.
Last month, a New Jersey state court dismissed a lawsuit against the Borgata Hotel Casino & Spa, brought by cocktail waitresses known as the “Borgata Babes,” who claimed that they were victims of gender and weight discrimination.
Jennifer Bogdan, writing here for the Press of Atlantic City, notes that, upon hire, Borgata told its servers that they must appear “physically fit” with their weight proportionate to their height and, ultimately, banned the servers from gaining more than 7 percent of their body weight. Supposedly, the women were subject to periodic weight checks and suspension for failing to meet the weight requirements, with exceptions made for medical conditions and pregnancy.
You’ve probably heard of this It’s Just Lunch, a Hallandale Beach-based company, even though you may not realize it. I’ll give you a hint. Have you flown recently? Yeah, that’s right. It’s Just Lunch is a matchmaking service that advertises around page 55 of the in-flight magazine of just about every domestic airline.
According to the company’s About IJL page, It’s Just Lunch was founded in 1991 by a resourceful, professional woman. Now go to the home page, scroll down the page to the right and look at the pictures of the It’s Just Lunch “Dating Specialists.” Notice anything in common?
Yeah, the EEOC did too. So, it filed this complaint in federal court.
(Betcha didn’t see that lede coming…)
So, let me take you back to late December 2012 — a time when my blog was blowing up. Back then, I wrote this post about Melissa Nelson. Ms. Nelson had worked as an assistant to dentist James Knight. That is, until Dr. Knight fired her in 2010 based on concerns from both he and his wife that if Ms. Nelson continued to work for Dr. Knight, he’d have sex with her and it would ruin their marriage.
So, Ms. Nelson sued for gender discrimination.
In Centucky Kentucky, it’s not retaliation to fire employees who complain about sexual favoritism.
Then again making apple-pie moonshine and using a butcher cleaver to slice off the arm of a Detroit gangster isn’t frowned upon either. At least, that’s what watching Justified teaches me.
But even in Kentucky, they have laws. No, it’s true.
After the jump, you’ll see a KY federal court’s rationale for the latest sexual-favoritism ruling. And I’ll provide some tips for dealing with employees who complain about cushy assignments given to employees who get freaky with management.
The Employer Handbook Blog