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Congress takes a step closer to ending forced arbitration of age bias claims

Yesterday, the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee announced that it had advanced the Protecting Older Americans Act, which would invalidate forced arbitration clauses requiring employees to arbitrate age discrimination claims, whether for disparate treatment, disparate impact, harassment, or retaliation. 15 Senators voted in favor and 6 against. The legislation, introduced in…

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A new bill in Congress would uncap damages in federal discrimination lawsuits

Occasionally, I post about MONSTER discrimination jury verdicts, some in the seven and eight figures. I do it for shock value and, often, the clicks. (Guilty as charged.) But posts about the subsequent remittitur, where a federal judge slashes the compensatory or punitive damages award to $300,000 or less, don’t…

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This guy didn’t need an accommodation to perform his job. He wanted one to avoid discipline.

Today, I will tell you about an employee caught sleeping on the job. Several times. The first was when three coworkers observed him sleeping at his desk while not on a break, which violated the company’s conduct policy. So, with HR’s approval, the employee’s manager decided to issue him a…

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Man tests positive for marijuana, blames it on his lip balm, and doubles down with an ADA lawsuit.

Yesterday, I wrote about how the DEA’s move to ease restrictions on marijuana would change the ADA landscape for employers by requiring accommodations for employees with disabilities who use medical cannabis to treat. For now, however, marijuana remains a Schedule One drug. So, the Americans with Disabilities Act does not…

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With the DEA reportedly ready to ease restrictions on marijuana, the ADA landscape changes for employers

  Last week, the Associated Press reported that the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration would move to reclassify marijuana (cannabis), moving it from Schedule I, where it’s currently listed with heroin and LSD, to Schedule III, with as less dangerous doctor-prescribed drugs like (Tylenol with codeine) and testosterone. The AP notes that this shift comes “as marijuana…

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Must an employer accommodate an employee who won’t use transgender names and pronouns?

Readers of this blog know that the EEOC recently finalized its new workplace harassment guidance and that one of the contentious issues in the guidance, according to a dissenting EEOC Commissioner, is the EEOC’s position that misgendering an employee, e.g., by consistently using the wrong pronouns, can violate Title VII.…

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DOL to Employers: Using artificial intelligence does not excuse compliance with the FLSA and FMLA

On Monday, the  U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division published new guidance reminding employers that the use of artificial intelligence and other automated technologies to track work hours, optimize employee performance, and administer leaves of absence does not excuse compliance with the laws that the WHD enforces, namely,…

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The EEOC has finalized its new workplace harassment guidance

In October 2023, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission voted to propose new Guidance on workplace harassment, the first voted document the EEOC had issued on harassment since its “Enforcement Guidance on Vicarious Liability for Unlawful Harassment by Supervisors” in 1999. Yesterday, after receiving approximately 38,000 comments on its proposal,…

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See you on Zoom today at Noon ET to address the FTC’s noncompete ban and the DOL’s OT changes

You still have time to register (here) for The Employer Handbook Zoom Office Happy Hour, which returns today at Noon ET. My Pierson Ferdinand employment law partners, Ben Jacobs and Amy Epstein Gluck, will join me to discuss the FTC’s plan to ban most employee noncompetes and explore the Department of Labor’s proposed increase…

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17 states sue to block the EEOC from greenlighting abortion leave under the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act

From the time it proposed regulations to implement the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act to when it issued a final rule earlier this month, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission received approximately 54,000 comments urging it to exclude abortion from the definition of “pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions.” The EEOC…