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The Employer Handbook Blog

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Proving a disability in court isn’t that hard. (Even judges mistake how easy it is.)

A man walks into a job interview. Years earlier, he sustained an injury that caused him to walk with a limp and requires him to extend his leg when seated. He had applied for one of the company’s open positions. And since he satisfied the minimum experiential and educational requirements,…

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Gadzooks! This is one of the largest wage and hour judgments ever!

Yesterday, the Department of Labor announced that a Pennsylvania federal court awarded $35.8 million in overtime back wages and liquidated damages to 6,000 current and former workers across fifteen facilities in what it claims to be “one of nation’s largest FLSA judgments.” In its Findings of Fact and Conclusions of…

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Social media posts from outside the office can foster a hostile work environment at work

Picking up where the EEOC left off earlier this year with its harassment guidance for employers that postings on a social media account targeting employees can contribute to a hostile work environment, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals recently reached the same conclusion in an opinion issued last week. The…

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Oh, you think you know retaliation, do you? Wait until you see this.

Yesterday, I read a press release in the EEOC’s Virtual Newsroom announcing the resolution of a retaliation lawsuit. In my twenty-plus years of practicing employment law, I didn’t recall seeing retaliation claims quite like this one. According to the EEOC’s lawsuit, the general manager complained to the company’s Acting Chief…

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Join us on 8/13/24 at Noon ET for “Everything Employers Need to Know Now About the FTC’s Non-Compete Rule”

The FTC’s rule banning non-competes takes effect on September 4, 2024. Before then, employers must notify most employees that their noncompetition agreements are unenforceable. However, several pending lawsuits aim to block the rule. Although, none have succeeded…yet. What does the Rule require? What are the chances that these lawsuits will…

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Firing fast in certain situations can help defeat retaliation claims. Yes, firing FAST!

The common logic is that firing an employee shortly after complaining about workplace discrimination isn’t a good look. Indeed, the tighter the temporal proximity between the two events, the more likely the employee will perceive that the employer retaliated against them for their complaint. But. I read a commonsense Ninth…

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🚨A Pennsylvania federal judge DENIED an employer’s request to block the FTC’s non-compete rule.🚨

Do you remember that scene from Rounders, right after Mike McDermott spots Teddy KGB’s poker “tell,” when Teddy laments, “Hanging around…hanging around… kid’s got alligator blood. Can’t get rid of him.“? It feels that way, with the Federal Trade Commission’s non-compete Rule imposing a comprehensive ban on new non-competes with…

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Heads up, Pennsylvania healthcare providers! The Commonwealth passed a new noncompete law.

With most eyes focused on a pending lawsuit in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania to eliminate the FTC’s noncompete ban, local employers may have missed the news last week that Governor Shapiro signed into law a measure restricting the use of non-competition agreements in…

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Must an employer grant a RETROACTIVE workplace accommodation if a disabled employee requests one??

No. At least not unless they drive a DeLorean powered by 1.21 gigawatts of electricity that can travel back through time to convert their retroactive request to a prospective one. That’s what I took away from a recent federal court decision involving a military veteran who suffers from Post-Traumatic Stress…