My cold, black employment-law heart is numb to just about anything. I remember this one time, early in my career, when I had to depose a teenage female plaintiff and ask her, with her mother present in the room, whether it offended her that her alleged male sexual harasser wanted…
Articles Posted in Discrimination and Unlawful Harassment
Today, President Obama will sign an Executive Order banning LGBT discrimination
According to a Friday report from Cynthia L. Hackerott at Wolters Kluwer, President Obama will sign an Executive Order today banning discrimination against LGBT employees by federal contractors. Last month, I blogged here that the White House had announced that it intended to eventually ban LGBT discrimination by federal contractors…
Court: No need to accommodate employee who shows up drunk on Mike’s Hard Lemonade
Hey there, United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division. This Americans with Disabilities Act failure-to-accomodate opinion right here. You had me at “Ortiz reported to work on April 5, 2010, carrying one empty and three full cans of ‘Mike’s Hard Lemonade’ (an alcoholic beverage), along…
5 HR Essentials from the #EEOC’s New Pregnancy Discrimination Guidance
On the heels of yesterday’s astounding blogging success, “What LeBron’s return teaches employers about accommodating the Mark of the Beast” — Pulitzer, please — I was planning on coming at you today with “Five Workplace Lessons from Dutch Soccer’s Third Place in the World Cup.” It was going to have…
What LeBron’s return teaches employers about accommodating the Mark of the Beast
I’ll save the “Five Workplace Lessons From LeBron James’s Return to Cleveland” post for the other bloggers. Here’s one — one which I guarantee you don’t find anywhere else: If during his time in Miami, LeBron James became a Fundamentalist Christian, and, upon filling out his new-employee paperwork with the…
Court: Pregnancy discrimination can still occur four months after childbirth
Last night, having come across this wacky Family Show gif, I couldn’t decide whether to binge watch the first season of Amish Mafia. Again. For the third time. (And, by third, I mean eighth). Or dip my English toe into the Breaking Amish pool. So, in an attempt to get…
All that for a bag of chips: Walgreens pays $180K to settle ADA claim
A few months ago, I blogged about a California federal court decision, which recognized that Walgreens may have an obligation under the Americans with Disabilities Act to accommodate one of its cashiers who opened a $1.39 bag of chips (without having paid for it first) because she was suffering from…
Dating app maker Tinder sued for, you guessed it, sexual harassment
I’m often asked, “Eric, where do you find this stuff?” Why TMZ, of course. Break ’em off TMZ: “Whitney Wolfe claims in a new lawsuit — obtained by TMZ — she was mercilessly brutalized by the other execs who wanted to remove her title because no one would take a…
3 ways the #HobbyLobby decision affects your workplace
Mid-morning yesterday, the Internet broke shortly after the Supreme Court issued its 5-4 decision in HHS v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc.. Jeez, I’m still cleaning out my Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook feeds. In case your wifi, 4G, 3G, dial-up, TV, radio, and other electronics picked the wrong day to quit…
Black man claims a paint company’s paint is racist and he was fired for complaining
The Benjamin Moore color gallery contains, among others, Clinton Brown and Tucker Chocolate. My virgin ears! I mean, how racist can you get?!? Or, so says Clinton Tucker, a former Benjamin Moore employee, who filed a complaint in New Jersey state court in which he alleges that these paint names…