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The Employer Handbook BlogEEOC: Hey, employer! You refused to accommodate an injured desk clerk with a stool. A simple stool.
Of all the hills on which an employer should plant its flag to defend, this is not the one. Continue reading
Articles Posted in Discrimination and Unlawful Harassment
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.
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 of Labor.
Late last week, the two federal watchdogs announced a partnership. Continue reading
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. Continue reading
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! Continue reading
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 background on the lawsuit.
Predictably, the airline appealed the lower court’s decision to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. It also asked the sanctioning judge to stay his order requiring training. That last part didn’t go so well.
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, including data by job category and sex and race or ethnicity, to the EEOC. Continue reading
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 employer, thus setting the stage for a jury trial on the plaintiff’s Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) claims.
I’ll explain why. Continue reading