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The Employer Handbook BlogYou Investigated the Harassment. Did the Response Work?
A meeting, a report, and a camera gave this employer plenty to describe. The employee’s testimony about what happened afterward gave a jury something to decide. Continue reading
Articles Posted in Race
A Changing Termination Explanation Didn’t Sink This Employer’s Defense.
A termination letter can become a vocabulary quiz once litigation starts. Every changed adjective gets its own exhibit.
When DEI training becomes part of a hostile workplace claim
A federal judge dismissed this white employee’s hostile workplace claim last year. On appeal, the Ninth Circuit considered the alleged training remarks alongside years of workplace incidents and gave the claim new life. Continue reading
“Not Crazy About White People” Allegedly Appeared in an HR Report. What Could Possibly Go Wrong?
The employer hired an outside investigator to examine workplace concerns. A former HR employee later relied on what the investigator allegedly documented to support her own bias claims.
Three Employees Refused the Same Drug Test. Only the White Employee Got His Job Back.
Management enforced its drug-testing rule. The exceptions it made afterward created the bigger problem.
The Employer Appealed a $1 Million Punitive Award. The Third Circuit Made It $2 Million.
The company had an anti-harassment policy, trained its employee-relations manager to investigate complaints, and opened one. Then it assigned the accused supervisor to counsel the employee who complained about him.
A Manager Couldn’t Follow the Spanish-Language Meetings. His Discrimination Claims Got Lost in Translation.
A 25-minute meeting in Spanish allegedly became a two-sentence summary in English. That may be a workplace communication problem, but this court did not see race or national-origin discrimination.
Seven Employment Claims Took the Stage. Lizzo’s Touring Company Was Good as H*ll at Defeating Them.
Lizzo’s touring company swept every remaining claim from a former wardrobe assistant’s lawsuit off the stage. The celebrity headline masks an evidence lesson.
29 Absences, 120 Late Arrivals, and an HR Discrimination Claim That Punched Out Early.
Her job was tracking employee attendance. Unfortunately, someone was tracking hers, too.
Title VII Bans Discrimination and Retaliation, Not Stressful Offices or Difficult Bosses
The employer offered him $400,000 to stay. He still claimed that workplace stress, microaggressions, and an abrasive executive amounted to race discrimination.