I’ve seen weaker lawsuits. But let me explain why the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals recently affirmed that asking a female colleague to babysit, once hitting her posterior with a rubber band, and even failing to use her proper title is not enough to create a hostile work environment based on gender. Continue reading
Articles Posted in Sexual Harassment
Law restricting arbitration of sexual harassment claims doesn’t apply retroactively, says court that can read the law
Your tax dollars at work, folks. Well, technically, just those of us in New Jersey. Continue reading
President Biden is ready to sign a bipartisan bill ending certain sexual harassment NDAs
Democrats and Republicans don’t often see eye to eye on new employment legislation. Except, it seems, when Gretchen Carlson spearheads the effort to get these new bills passed. Continue reading
A defendant asked a plaintiff alleging sexual harassment to undergo a — oh, Dear God, no!!!
In today’s post, I had planned to dispense some wage-and-hour tips for employers seeking to adjust hourly pay rates. And then the employment law gods spoke to me and said, “Eric, this blog is about the clicks, not curing insomnia.” Continue reading
Give this manager a gold star!

GFDL, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Yesterday, we discussed why employers must adopt comprehensive, well-known anti-discrimination policies. That way, victims know what to do to get their complaints of harassment addressed.
Today, we’re going to focus on the importance of a prompt employer response that is reasonably designed to end the complained-of behavior. Continue reading
Just because a manager is a crude jerk doesn’t mean he broke the law too
It takes a lot to establish what the law considers a hostile work environment. A former warehouse manager learned this lesson the hard way when a federal judge dismissed her complaint with prejudice before she even got the chance to take any discovery. Continue reading
An end to certain sexual harassment NDAs? Check out this new bipartisan federal bill.
Earlier this year, President Biden signed the Ending Forced Arbitration of Sexual Assault and Sexual Harassment Act of 2021. The law allows victims of sexual assault or sexual harassment to litigate their claims in court even if they signed an arbitration agreement.
At the end of last month, a bipartisan group of representatives in the House introduced legislation to limit the use of nondisclosure and nondisparagement agreements involving claims of sexual assault and sexual harassment. Continue reading
Sexual harassment? No, I was just asking for a co-worker’s opinion about my butt lesions.
Does the spike in remote work arrangements over the past few years mean the end of wacky sexual harassment cases?
Yeah, right!
What would make an HR expert allegedly compare this company’s workplace culture to a “sewer”?
The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission caught a whiff, sued the employer in December, and just announced a $361,000 settlement for seven current and former female employees. Continue reading
Is sexual harassment of a victim behind her back against the law?
Over the weekend, I caught up on a few older cases I had intended to blog about earlier. The one today on which I’ll focus has some “disturbing facts.”
At least that’s how one of the Fifth Circuit judges deciding the case viewed them: Continue reading