Search
The Employer Handbook BlogDon’t use THIS FONT in your legal briefs (or anywhere else probably).
This one is a bit of a total stretch. Continue reading
Is it worse to smoke a cigarette in a tanker truck carrying highly flammable substances or drive it recklessly?
A federal appellate court recently breathed new life into the discrimination claims of a tanker driver alleging that his race motivated his employer to terminate his employment for it deemed reckless driving. His evidence? His employer had treated him differently than other tanker drivers who engaged in conduct that was similar enough to his.
So, let’s explore how other employees may be similarly situated to one another in the context of a discrimination claim. Continue reading
There’s no bright-line rule or magic words needed for employees to request workplace accommodations.
See what you think of this. Continue reading
An employer that refuses to accommodate an employee’s disability can still win an ADA lawsuit. Here’s how.
The Americans with Disabilities Act requires employers to make reasonable accommodations for a qualified individual with a disability unless doing so will impose an undue hardship on its business. A plaintiff who claims that their employer failed to accommodate them must initially establish that they could perform the position’s essential functions and that the employer refused to provide an accommodation.
Most courts have found that an employer’s good faith attempt to accommodate is insufficient. However, those courts will not impose liability unless the plaintiff establishes an alternative reasonable accommodation. Continue reading
Here’s why the FTC thinks its non-compete rule will survive a legal challenge
Last week, the Federal Trade Commission responded to efforts by a Texas business and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce to convince a Texas federal judge to block the Federal Trade Commission’s final Non-compete Rule, which would impose a comprehensive ban on new non-competes with all workers, including senior executives. Continue reading
Got an age discrimination claim? It’s not that hard to plead one in court.
A plaintiff claiming age discrimination at work must ultimately prove, by a preponderance of the evidence, that age was the ‘but-for’ cause of whatever adverse employment action the plaintiff claims to have suffered.
However, a recent Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals decision reminds us that merely pleading allegations of age discrimination is easy, like Sunday morning. Continue reading
The world’s largest HR organization does NOT support the FTC’s non-compete rule
The Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM), with nearly 340,000 members in 180 countries (of which I am one), filed an amicus brief last week in a lawsuit pending in Texas in which it supported efforts to block the Federal Trade Commission’s final non-compete Rule. The FTC seeks to impose a comprehensive ban on new non-competes with all workers, including senior executives.
Today’s letter of the day is “P,” as in “Pretext”
In employment discrimination cases where a defendant-employer articulates a legitimate, nondiscriminatory reason for the employment action, the plaintiff has the burden then shifts to the plaintiff-employee to establish that the employer’s reason was a pretext for discrimination, i.e., the defendant’s reason for, say, terminating the plaintiff’s employment is false. Continue reading
Did this company retaliate or simply exercise its First Amendment right (to BLAST its employee on Facebook)?
“An employer’s free speech right to comment upon matters that affect the business is firmly established,” noted a Vermont federal judge earlier this month. “But when such commentary is a threat of retaliation … it is without the protection of the First Amendment.”
That’s fancy speak for employers can’t use social media to retaliate against employees, current or former. Continue reading
Various employer associations have sued to block the DOL’s new overtime rule
Yesterday, several employer groups and associations filed a federal lawsuit in the same court that, in 2017, stymied the U.S. Department of Labor‘s efforts to change the overtime rules by raising the minimum salary level needed to be exempt from receiving overtime. As I’ll explain below, the 2024 plaintiffs have also raised the same arguments that worked seven years ago.
It’s déjà vu all over again. Continue reading