Last week, five players on the U.S. Women’s National Soccer Team filed a Charge of Discrimination with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission against the U.S. Soccer Federation. The women claim that they paid up to four times less than their male counterparts for doing basically the same job. A reader of this…
Back in 2012, when I wasn’t part of this new protected class, I wrote here about whether an employer would violate the Americans with Disabilities Act by requiring an employee to work overtime. The takeaway from that post was, yes, if working a minimum number of hours each week is an essential job function,…
Kinda like Welcome to the Jungle, except with a lot less GnR. Or maybe like the famous intersection of Hollywood and Vine, except, not famous and all. And, let’s face it, the only sightseeing at FMLA/ADA is done by dorks like us. Who wants to pose with me for a selfie? Well, I…
If national origin motivates an employment decision, that’s disparate treatment. Title VII forbids disparate treatment. So, what if… nepotism motivates an employment decision, which involves favoring one nationality over another, then does national origin motivate the employment decision? Or, put another way: could nepotism violate Title VII? No, nepotism does not…
Because, I’m pretty sure that I’ll get my employment-lawyer-blogger card revoked if I don’t offer a self-deprecating blog post about age discrimination on my 40th birthday. But, feel free to raise my spirits by pledging a pair of tickets to the Philly stop of the Guns N’ Roses reunion tour. Oh, God!…
An even worse idea, my friends, is admitting that you still drink Zima filed a defamation lawsuit in response to an employee’s complaint to the EEOC. A national origin claim becomes a retaliation lawsuit. Late last week, Kurt Orzeck, writing at Law360, reported here about a lawsuit that the EEOC initiated in California federal…
What would happen if you punched your boss in the face? Wait! Don’t answer that. Ok, allow me. You’d get fired. But, what if, after you get fired, your boss calls you an awful racist/religious/sexist/”you name it” slur? Could it be reasonably inferred retroactively that bias motivated your firing? According to this recent…
Last week, the United States Equal Employment Opportunity Commission made headlines by filing its first lawsuits against private-sector businesses challenging sexual orientation discrimination as sex discrimination. Meanwhile, yesterday, another federal court in Christiansen v. Omnicom Group, Inc. (opinion here) concluded just the opposite: sexual orientation discrimination is “reprehensible,” but does not violate Title VII of the…
We have an extra-special guest blogger today. It’s my mentee, Meaghan Londergan. (Sorry, folks, all of The Karate Kid images were copyright protected). Sadly, I no longer work with Meaghan. But, in her defense, there’s only so much Meyer that a young impressionable associate can take. Since then, Meaghan’s been…
A temporary disability isn’t an Americans with Disabilities Act “disability;” except, when it is. In Clark v. Boyd Tunica, Inc. (opinion here), the plaintiff suffered a fractured ankle on the job. Her employer had a policy that employees were subject to drug tests following an on-the-job injury or illness requiring medical…