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Articles Posted in Hiring & Firing

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This Employee Relations Department redeemed itself (sort of).

Earlier in the week, I shared four ways to BOTCH a sexual harassment investigation. My “muse” was an Employee Relations Department that caught the attention of the EEOC for its alleged poor handling of an employee’s complaints of sexual harassment. But I appreciate a good comeback story, don’t you? And…

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In January, a 78-year-old receptionist was named “Employee of the Year.” In February, she was fired.

This sounds like something that might interest the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Oh, wait. Would you look at this EEOC press release? It seems her employer may have engaged in age and disability discrimination. Let’s see why the EEOC believes this: (I mean, other than “duh!”) According to the lawsuit, the…

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Not all retaliation laws are alike. There’s one that doesn’t even require any intent to retaliate.

There are all sorts of anti-retaliation laws that protect employees. Many require that employees who invoke them prove that the employer acted with retaliatory intent. But not all of them. Last week, the Supreme Court agreed unanimously in Murray v. UBS Securities that the one that protects whistleblowers who speak…

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A federal jury awarded $1,675,000 to a deaf applicant passed over for two warehouse positions

Before discussing the jury verdict, I’ll tell you a little about how we got here. Let’s go back to New Year’s Eve 2020 when the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission announced (here) that it had sued a distribution company for violating the Americans with Disabilities Act by refusing to interview…

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Here are 105,000 reasons not to force an older worker to retire

“When are you going to retire?” “Why don’t you retire at 65?” “What is the reason you are not retiring?” A company manager at a manufacturing and distribution company allegedly asked these questions of a direct report as she approached her 65th birthday, according to the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity…

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A court correctly dismissed claims of age discrimination, IMO. But, this employment lawyer still has a bone to pick.

Last night, I read a NJ Appellate Division opinion about a plaintiff in his fifties who claimed his age motivated the defendant to end his employment. Spoiler alert: it didn’t. There were many reasons why the appellate court affirmed the trial court’s decision to grant summary judgment in favor of…

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Did this guy’s performance really nose-dive? Or did his age motivate his abrupt termination?

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before. One of your employees has been with the company for several years. Over that span, they reported to the same manager, who consistently provided positive feedback and good performance reviews. All is well. Then, the manager leaves. And there’s a new sheriff…

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Employee claims bias when employer failed to hire an inferior candidate.

“Uh, Eric, don’t you mean the superior candidate?” You’d think I would, but I’m reading what the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals wrote in this recent opinion. The plaintiff, a black woman, applied for a job. The company conducted two rounds of interviews, with separate panels in each round, to…

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A company must rehire a moonlighting comic it fired for his ‘inflammatory’ standup routine.

About a year ago, a media organization fired one of its reporters after it found his ‘inflammatory’ Instagram posts (NSFW) showing clips of his off-the-clock standup comedy routines. Last week, an arbitrator, who found some of the reporter’s jokes ‘funny,’ ordered the company to rehire him. Why? I’ll explain by…