On Monday, I blogged here about an employee using CBD for her migraines who accused her employer of violating the Americans with Disabilities Act. It fired her after she tested positive for marijuana on a drug test at work. One of my takeaways from the post was that particular state…
What I’ve got for you today is another hostile work environment decision. But, unlike yesterday’s general civility code violation, well short of the pervasive or severe behavior that could interfere with an employee’s working conditions, today’s is a doozy. We’re talking about four instances of racial harassment: an offensive note,…
This case involves a plaintiff who worked as a part-time bartender who worked for a bar in New Jersey. She claimed that her supervisor created a hostile work environment by calling the plaintiff names “used to describe a person with an oversized posterior.” (The court deemed it unnecessary to identify…
A few weeks ago, I blogged about a situation involving an employee who used CBD products and tested positive for marijuana at work. She claimed that the employer took into account her underlying disability when it terminated her employment and violated the Americans with Disabilities Act. The employer countered that…
Two posts in one week about interference with Family and Medical Leave Act rights. The FMLA prohibits employers from interfering with, restraining, or denying the exercise of FMLA rights. On Wednesday, we discussed how an employer doesn’t interfere with FMLA when it does not provide FMLA leave to an employee…
As an employment law mediator, my resume includes many years of private practice and service to some federal courts. But I cut my chops at the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and have remained a volunteer mediator with the EEOC for over a decade. If anyone asked me what I…
“Clairvoyance,” that’s a 10th-grade word. Let me Google it just in case. Ok, we’re good. We’re taught, and by “we,” I mean our managers. And by “taught,” I mean “cross our fingers that they were paying attention during training,” that an employee does not need to say the words “Family…
Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits employment discrimination based on religion. This includes refusing to accommodate an employee’s sincerely held religious beliefs or practices unless the accommodation would impose an undue hardship. An “undue hardship” results in more than a de minimis cost to the employer.…
Kind of like that guy, except without the snazzy mustache and a lot less British. For those of you who have had the misfortune of defending a lawsuit under the Family and Medical Leave Act, I’m guessing that most have you have done so in federal court, and it involved…
May is Mental Health Month. The U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division, which enforces the Family and Medical Leave Act, just dropped some additional resources for workers on their rights to take leave for serious mental health conditions and for employers to better understand how to comply with…