Hey, don’t judge me. You’re just as heartless reading this as I am writing it. The Family and Medical Leave Act gives eligible employees the right to take twelve weeks of job leave because of a serious health condition.” When his leave ends, an employer must reinstate an employee to…
The Employer Handbook Blog
After the feds caught this employer red-handed not paying OT, the employer did the UNTHINKABLE!
Folks, someday, the U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division (WHD) may darken your door to audit your books and records. Perhaps, they’ll find a violation and require you to pay back wages and liquidated damages. If your next steps involve retaliating against employees who cooperate with investigators and…
How would terms limits on the Supreme Court justices impact employment law?
Earlier this week, The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research released the results of a poll, which found that 67% of Americans support term limits for Supreme Court justices, including a majority of Democrats and Republicans. Yesterday, a few members of the House introduced a new bill called the…
The anatomy of an FMLA interference claim
An employer fires an employee after the company has approved him for intermittent leave under the Family and Medical Leave Act. The employee begins taking leave in separate blocks of time for a single qualifying reason. Then, the employer fires the employee. So the employee claims FMLA interference. What exactly…
By the time she made it to court, her discrimination and retaliation claims were D.O.A.
An individual who wants to bring federal disability discrimination and retaliation claims against an employer can’t just go right to court. No, courts would choke with employment lawsuits. Instead, she must first exhaust her administrative remedies at the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission by filing a charge of discrimination. But…
A “relentless and ruthless” campaign of 1,000 age-based insults might force an older employee to resign
“This case is close,” reasoned a federal appellate court. Unlike the district court before it, which granted summary judgment in favor of the employer-defendant on the Age Discrimination in Employment Act claims of the employee-plaintiff, the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals concluded that a jury could return an age discrimination…
Remember this recent decision when one employee sues you for unpaid overtime
Has anyone ever sued your business for violating the Fair Labor Standards Act? This federal law requires covered employers to pay minimum wage and overtime at time-and-a-half when employees work more than 40 hours in a workweek. They can be expensive to defend — even the ones that aren’t collective…
My source told me that a federal court has blocked the EEOC’s recent LGBT guidance
Who is my “source”? I got the scoop from EEOC Commissioner Andrea Lucas, who updated us on LinkedIn over the weekend about a Tennessee federal judge who entered this preliminary injunction to stop the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission from implementing this technical assistance document issued in June 2021 that…
A worker claimed religious bias over abortion rights. On Thursday, a jury awarded her over $5M!!!
In August 2017, a flight attendant sued her employer and her union in federal court. The plaintiff would amend her complaint a few times. Among the claims that remained in the final version, the plaintiff alleged that both defendants violated Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 by…
EEOC: Slow your roll before administering COVID-19 tests at work
On Tuesday, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission updated its COVID-19 guidance. I went ahead and redlined the changes for you. But the EEOC wants to call your attention specifically to the updated circumstances under which employers may test employers for COVID-19 at work: EEOC’s assessment at the outset of…