Only law blog with this pic. Fo Shizzle. If only someone would’ve created a Grumpy Old Men / Wu-Tang Clan mashup. ODB passing the verse to Walter Matthau… Oh well, you’re stuck with me blogging about an age discrimination case from the Northern District of Indiana. At least I’m off of the…
Articles Posted in Discrimination and Unlawful Harassment
A pay raise is not discriminatory and eye rolls don’t create a hostile work environment, mmkay?
Reading yesterday’s post about religious accommodations and Flying Spaghetti Monsters may have had you rolling your eyes like — who is that old guy? Tony Danza? Just kidding, I know my 80s TV. It’s Corbin Bernsen. Keeping with the topics of accommodations and eye rolling, I recently read this opinion about an…
You guys don’t have to let employees pray to a Flying Spaghetti Monster. Probably.
Even a true “Pastafarian.” Most employment lawyers — especially us blogger types — are Godlike creatures never at a loss for a good war story. Like that time I sat through the deposition of a construction site employee who testified about how the walls of the control room were covered ceiling-to-floor with…
Medical Marijuana is coming to PA. What do employers need to know?
Pennsylvania is about to become the second Commonwealth in the United States to legalize medical marijuana. (23 states — la di da, states — plus DC currently allow it) Does this mean that employees with migraines can puff vape pens and eat Cheetos in your break rooms at work? Actually, I’m pretty…
Here’s a novel defense to a discrimination claim. (Replace “novel” with “damn near frivolous”).
Let’s say that one of your employees forms a corporation. The sole purpose of the corporation is to accept direct payment of wages for the employee. In other words, this arrangement does not affect the employee’s duties or your control over the employee at work. Indeed, maybe you provide the employee with business cards…
The most essential elements of an employee handbook acknowledgment
Right around the time that email subscribers to this blog — you can become one too, you know — receive today’s post, I’ll be sitting on an “Ask the Expert” legal panel at the Lehigh Valley Chapter of SHRM saying lawyerly stuff like… “It depends.” and “I’ll get back to you on…
The last word is often key to ADA accommodations
That’s why I kick so much butt with Americans with Disabilities Act accommodations. As a lawyer, I always have to have the last word. LOL! (Or say stuff like, “It depends.”) The ADA duty to accommodate. The ADA requires an employer to provide a reasonable accommodation to an employee, if doing…
Permanent light duty is not an ADA accommodation. Unless you make it one.
The Americans with Disabilities Act requires employers to provide a reasonable accommodation to an individual with a disability, if doing so will allow that person to perform the essential functions of the job. Temporary light duty? Yep, that’s a reasonable accommodation. But, what about permanent light duty? Last night, I was…
Can an employer rescind a job offer based on the results of a genetic test?
A received a number of emails following yesterday’s blog post, “Can you refuse to hire a person whom you fear may have a future disability?” Most were nice. Although, I didn’t appreciate one reader’s virtual flaming bag of virtual dog poop left in my inbox. That person can go to virtual hell.…
Can you refuse to hire a person whom you fear may have a future disability?
Over the next few days. you may read a bunch of headlines about yesterday’s Eighth Circuit decision in Morris v. BNSF Railway (opinion here), touting the court’s holding that obesity, by itself, is a not a disability under the Americans with Disabilities Act. Specifically, the court concluded that “for obesity, even morbid…