The words “cisgender” or “non-transgender” employee appear nowhere in Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the federal workplace law that outlaws gender discrimination. But, according to a Pennsylvania federal judge, “that does not preclude the possibility that discrimination against both a cisgender male and cisgender female may…
After taking a few days off and rocking out in Seattle, I’m back to blogging about employment law. 🤘🤘🤘 Today, we pull back the curtain and reveal how the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission will address failure-to-accommodate claims under the Supreme Court’s new religious accommodation standard established last year in…
Like The Rock laying the smack(eth) down on Cody Rhodes in a Chicago parking lot, a federal appellate court recently pummelled the National Labor Relations Board. Although to be clear, no one was harmed as part of the DC Court of Appeals’ recent ruling about the contours of employee surveillance.…
Suppose an employee gets fired after complaining about sexual harassment at work. If that person later claims retaliation, they will have to establish a nexus between the two events, and the complaint also arises to the level of what we call a “protected activity.” For an internal sexual harassment complaint…
A recent federal appellate court decision is an important reminder to confirm early—not later—whether the employee suing your business signed an arbitration agreement. The plaintiff had signed an agreement with an arbitration provision that covered his subsequent claims for disability discrimination, which he filed in federal court. But the employer…
I’m going to tell you about a transgender man who worked for three years as a sergeant for a state prison. While working at the prison, he began the process of medically and socially transitioning to align with his gender identity. He underwent hormone replacement therapy, obtained a legal name…
Imagine being an employer-defendant and reading that sentence as the lede in a court’s summary judgment opinion. Ouch! But that’s precisely what an Indiana federal judge wrote about a defendant who fired an employee after it appeared to the company that the worker had amassed too many absences related to…
In a recent Fourth Circuit decision, the plaintiff learned this lesson the hard way. The plaintiff, a lawyer who later earned a promotion to Town Manager, suffered from anxiety, depression, and high blood pressure. He alleged in his complaint that the defendant knew about these disabilities. In January 2018, a…
Employees who want to take leave under the Family and Medical Leave Act must give at least 30 days advance notice if possible and practical. If 30 days’ notice is not practicable, for example, when the employee does not know when leave will begin, or if circumstances change or there…
The NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament began yesterday. Last night, I read that the average worker will spend seven hours watching it, with 26 percent of Americans saying they’re prepared to skip work altogether to watch. Cynically, I imagine some of these workers are currently on intermittent FMLA. Two things can…