I enjoy blogging about employment law. But occasionally, perhaps after a long day, I wish some of these blog posts would write themselves. Last night, I got my wish. As an email subscriber to the press releases from the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, I’ve noticed an unusual amount of…
Many of you accumulate vacation days at work throughout the year. So did the plaintiff in this recent federal court decision. She alleged that when her employer denied her requests to use her unused, accrued vacation in 2018 and 2019, it discriminated against her based on her sex, seemingly because…
Imagine a business that gives its employees two days off each week. There’s nothing abnormal about that. However, the company uses a sex-based policy to determine which two days an employee can pick. Only men can select full weekends off—women cannot. Instead, female employees can pick either two weekdays off…
TL;DR: They don’t. Here’s a longer explanation. There comes a time in most discrimination lawsuits when a defendant-employer will file a motion for summary judgment. By filing that motion, the movant is telling the court that there are no material facts in dispute and, if the court applies the well-settled…
When most people think of federal anti-discrimination laws like Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, they associate them with employees suing employers for things like discrimination, retaliation, and hostile work environments. But Title VII covers more than just employers. For example, Title VII outlaws any employment practice…
For every unicorn $25.6 million jury verdict you may read about online, thousands of discrimination cases fall well short of that mark. Way more never have a shot at making it to trial. And some don’t even have sufficient facts on the face of the complaint, which, if true, would establish…
Last week, the Supreme Court unanimously agreed that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 requires an employer that denies a religious accommodation to show that the burden of granting an accommodation would result in substantial increased costs in relation to the conduct of its particular business. The next day, the…
Last week, the Supreme Court made it more difficult for employers to establish that an employee’s request for a religious accommodation under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 creates an undue hardship. But there’s much more to Title VII than just religious accommodations. And the Supreme Court…
At a workplace in Nevada, “sexually graphic, violently misogynistic” music from artists like Eminem and Too $hort “blasted from commercial-strength speakers placed throughout the warehouse, the music overpowered operational background noise and was nearly impossible to escape.” Employees complained about it “almost daily.” But management brushed those complaints aside and…
So when the plaintiff in this federal court decision I read last night cited as evidence of her employer’s heterosexual animus that her gay coworker received a cake and party by gay supervisors on his 30th work anniversary, whereas she did not receive cake or party for the same occasion,…