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The Employer Handbook BlogProving a disability in court isn’t that hard. (Even judges mistake how easy it is.)
A man walks into a job interview. Continue reading
Articles Posted in Pennsylvania
Gadzooks! This is one of the largest wage and hour judgments ever!
Yesterday, the Department of Labor announced that a Pennsylvania federal court awarded $35.8 million in overtime back wages and liquidated damages to 6,000 current and former workers across fifteen facilities in what it claims to be “one of nation’s largest FLSA judgments.” Continue reading
🚨A Pennsylvania federal judge DENIED an employer’s request to block the FTC’s non-compete rule.🚨
Do you remember that scene from Rounders, right after Mike McDermott spots Teddy KGB’s poker “tell,” when Teddy laments, “Hanging around…hanging around… kid’s got alligator blood. Can’t get rid of him.“?
It feels that way, with the Federal Trade Commission’s non-compete Rule imposing a comprehensive ban on new non-competes with all workers. Continue reading
Heads up, Pennsylvania healthcare providers! The Commonwealth passed a new noncompete law.
With most eyes focused on a pending lawsuit in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania to eliminate the FTC’s noncompete ban, local employers may have missed the news last week that Governor Shapiro signed into law a measure restricting the use of non-competition agreements in the healthcare industry.
50,000 reasons to reconsider scolding an HR Manager for investigating sexual harassment claims (i.e., doing their job).
Yesterday, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission announced that a Pennsylvania-based construction company will pay $50,000 and furnish other relief to settle a retaliation lawsuit.
Retaliation can come in all shapes and sizes
Earlier this month, a federal appellate court addressed a few situations involving retaliation claims in the workplace in which parties (and sometimes courts) may misapply the law, namely, Title VII of the Civil Rights of 1964.
So, let’s clear this up. Continue reading
Hey, HR! Avoid the same mistake that this HR Department allegedly made when responding to an employee’s complaint.
An employer recently learned the hard way that a proper response to an employee’s complaint of harassment involves more than simply investigating it.
I’ll explain. Continue reading
Can employers legally favor transgender employees over cisgender employees?
The words “cisgender” or “non-transgender” employee appear nowhere in Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the federal workplace law that outlaws gender discrimination. But, according to a Pennsylvania federal judge, “that does not preclude the possibility that discrimination against both a cisgender male and cisgender female may be independent Title VII violations.”
I’ll explain why. Continue reading
When an employee sues, what law applies when they’ve worked in two states?
Famartin, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
I read a recent NJ federal court decision where a plaintiff began working for the defendant in New Jersey but later requested and received a transfer to Pennsylvania.
And that’s when things went awry. Continue reading
Are we seeing a trend? More judges aren’t falling for spurious COVID-19 religious accommodation claims.
Earlier this week, I wrote about a judge calling out an employee for trying to cast a personal choice to remain unvaccinated against COVID-19 as some deeply religious decision.
Last night, I read another recent opinion from a federal judge who called an employee trying to avoid a mandatory vaccination requirement at his new job on his religious 🐂💩. Continue reading