On Friday, a federal court in Georgia dismissed all of the remaining discrimination counts against Paula Deen and her brother, Bubba, after the parties reported to the court that the two sides had settled.
The settlement terms are undisclosed.
In a statement emailed to The Associated Press, Ms. Deen’s publicist wrote:
Do you have 50 or more employees working with 75 miles of one another?
If not, see ya Monday.
But if you do, check out the United States Department of Labor’s revised “Fact Sheet #28F: Qualifying Reasons for Leave under the Family and Medical Leave Act.”
There are 11 states with social media workplace privacy laws making it illegal for an employer to require that an employee or applicant fork over a social media login and password.
But, if a company in the other 39 states assumes that it has the green light to engage in these shenanigans, then chiggity check yo self before you wreck yo self, according to this recent NJ federal court decision.
The legal risks of accessing an employee’s Facebook account
Welcome everyone to the latest edition of the Employment Law Blog Carnival. What Target and Wal-Mart are to back-to-school shopping, this is your one-stop-shop for the hottest trends in employment law.
Your original carnival hosts for this month, my good pal Ari Rosenstein and the great folks at CPEhr.com asked me to step in. So, consider me the hot substitute teacher. [Hey! Eyes up here!] Glad to help out my friends.
Credit to Ari and the team for all of the hard work in putting this month’s edition of the Employment Law Blog Carnival together. I’ll take credit for all of the grammar errors, typos, and the inappropriate carnival soundtrack (you’ll see…).
Click through and enjoy!
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Twenty-one states and the District of Columbia have laws banning workplace discrimination in the private sector on the basis of sexual orientation. The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, which currently bans discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity or expression in public employment, may soon become the latest state to ban it in the private sector as well.
(The term “gender identity or expression” means actual or perceived gender identity, appearance, behavior, expression or physical characteristics whether or not associated with an individual’s assigned sex at birth).
A bill to amend the Pennsylvania Human Relations Act to add these workplace protections was introduced last week in the PA Senate with some bipartisan (but most Democratic) support. The same bill was introduced in the PA House the week before. Each measure would also carry the same restrictions in housing, credit and public accommodations.
A few years back, I sent in a Breaking Bad script to Vince Gilligan. At the time, I was concerned that the show was becoming too one-dimensional. High school teacher becomes meth kingpin. Yeah, I guess that could make for some good television — if you like taut, well-written, well-acted drama. But, every good series needs an episode or two to break from the formula.
Take Diff’rent Strokes, for example. That’s the 80’s comedy about the rich white Park Avenue man who adopts the two sons of his African American cleaning lady. That Arnold was always getting into it. Funny stuff! But there’s one episode that went against the comedic grain and stands out for just about every Strokes fan. Yep, the one where Gordon Jump played the bicycle shop owner. Very special? Very creepy. But, nonetheless memorable.
Jesse gets a job at Walt’s car wash, but things go south quickly.
Well, if it means that the employee diagnosed with anxiety and depression — the one who requested a reasonable accommodation to perform her job — gets fired. Well, then, a lot.
That’s basically what happened in this recent federal court case out of Kentucky.
You see, normally, a court won’t second guess an employer’s decision to terminate an alleged sexual harasser, following a complaint and investigation. And when the alleged sexual harasser later sues the employer for retaliation, well, I don’t care if she belongs to every protected class on the EEOC’s checklist, court’s tend not to sympathize with sexual harassers.
Under the Americans with Disabilities Act, an employer must make reasonable accommodation to the known physical or mental limitations of an individual unless the employer can show that doing so how cause it undue hardship.
Generally, an employee will initiate the process by advising her employer that she is disabled and needs an accommodation to perform the essential functions of her job. What then ensues is an interactive dialogue in which both sides work together in good faith to decide on what that accommodation may be.
But here’s the rub:
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Dear Google User Who Got Five Words Into The Lede And Clicked:
Somewhere, I picture the folks at Merriam Webster franticly revising the definition of “Pyrrhic” to cross-reference a stick of butter Paula Deen.
Yesterday at The Employer Handbook, I discussed the EEOC losing a major battle in its war against background checks.
Today, it’s all about winning the battle, but losing the war.
The Employer Handbook Blog