“Shaquille O’Neal, Pat Riley and Micky Arison at the White House” by Heatwhitehouse.jpg: Original uploader was Zorro37 at en.wikipedia derivative work: Ladislav Faigl (talk) – Heatwhitehouse.jpg. Licensed under Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons. We know that employees can be disciplined — and even lose their jobs — based on their…
Speak into a microphone and point one finger in the air if your Halloween completely sucked. Politico has reported that the National Restaurant Association paid out a five-figure settlement to two women who accused Herman Cain of making sexually suggestive comments. Details on the allegations and lessons that employers can…
Back in June, the United States Supreme Court ruled here that a class of 1.5 million women could not pursue gender discrimination claims together against Wal-Mart because they lacked a common injury. If, at first, you don’t succeed, file this Complaint in California on behalf of a class of only…
This has been an intense week here at The Employer Handbook. What, with Monday’s post on taking the “sex” out of sexual harassment, followed up on Tuesday with the 15 craziest excuses employees have for missing work. You guys seemed to like that one a lot. Then there was the post…
Courts have blessed written agreements between employer and employee to submit federal discrimination claims to arbitration. Here is an example. But, there’s legal and then there’s doing right. After the jump, how one employer got it wrong. Very wrong. Plus, what you can do to make sure that your business…
From the sublime to the ridiculous, the NY Daily News reports here that a 60-year-old musician suing for age discrimination claims that the presiding 88-year-old Manhattan judge is too old to hear the case. According to the NY Daily News story, the plaintiff, who was representing himself before his case…
CareerBuilder.com just released its annual list of most unusual excuses for calling in sick. “Lost track of time browsing https://www.theemployerhandbook.com” didn’t make the list. (Probably because it’s sooooooo commonplace). “Siri Assistant, what is the greatest labor-and-employment-law blog of them all?” “I found three stores in your area that sell Altoids.” After…
To prove sexual harassment, a plaintiff must have been subjected to pervasive or severe behavior that would make the plaintiff (and a reasonable person in the plaintiff’s shoes) believe that the working environment are hostile or abusive. Wait, I’m forgetting something. Oh yeah, the complained-of conduct must only be…
Back in June, I discussed here how the EEOC was discussing the use of leave from work as a reasonable accommodation under the ADA. The question I asked back then was how much leave is reasonable? When is enough, enough? Well, I can tell you now — and I suppose I…
The Family and Medical Leave Act affords eligible employees up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave during any 12-month period because of a serious health condition that makes the employee unable to perform his/her job. Let’s say that you have an employee who requests FMLA for a medical procedure that…