The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) is providing strategies for employers to expand employment opportunities for workers with unemployment gaps. And there’s also a double-secret EEO-1 Component 1 Report filing extension. Employing the unemployed Last week, the EEOC and the U.S. Department of Labor’s Office of Federal Contract Compliance…
That reads a little bit like a headline from The Onion. But according to this press release from the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, a company will pay $79,000 and provide other relief to settle a federal disability discrimination lawsuit in which the EEOC charged that the company violated the…
Last night, I read this federal court opinion where a defendant, sued after firing a plaintiff who used CBD for her disability, got the entire case dismissed. So, let’s talk about how and why. According to the plaintiff’s complaint, she had a disability for which she used an over-the-counter CBD…
A former bank employee is now facing up to $250,000 in fines and ten years in prison because he allegedly wanted to watch The Matrix on a work laptop. Actually, there’s a little more to this story. Shout out to Google, which alerted me to Nate Gartrell’s article at The Mercury…
Hopefully, this question doesn’t have you clutching your pearls. I assume that your business has both an anti-harassment policy and regular training. But some of your employees are jerks. Some use foul language, make rude comments, and even cross the line into behavior that may foster a hostile work environment,…
The general rule in employment law is that an employer’s inconsistencies and contradictions breathe life into discrimination claims. But there are some exceptions. Proving pretext. For example, last night, I read this federal court decision involving an employee fired shortly after complaining to HR about an offensive comment from a…
I can’t make this stuff up. The former Zamboni driver for a professional hockey team claims that the team unlawfully fired him based on his age (68) and disability (benign prostatic hypertrophy, which causes a frequent and uncontrollable need to urinate). Unfortunately for the plaintiff, a rather startling admission may…
As I sit here on vacation cleaning out some of the older cases from my Google Drive, I came across this Fifth Circuit decision about which I meant to blog a while ago. It’s about a baccarat dealer who had to deal with a customer making sexually charged gestures, remarks…
On April 15, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced that its Mask Order (requiring face masks on planes into and within the United States) would continue to allow the CDC time to assess the potential impact of the rise of COVID-19 cases. Yesterday, however, a Florida federal…
Last week, I read this press release from the U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division announcing a six-figure recovery from an employer that “illegally placed a cap on overtime at 16 hours per pay period and paid any overtime beyond 16 hours at straight time rates, a violation…