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Showing 102 posts in Employment Law.
SCOTUS Opens the Door to “Reverse” Discrimination
Employers expecting good news from a largely pro-employer Supreme Court have just been dealt an unexpected headache. In a rare unanimous opinion, the United States Supreme Court opened the door a little further to claims of “reverse” discrimination in the case of Ames V. Ohio Department of Youth Services. The Court removed the requirement that plaintiffs claiming reverse discrimination must prove their claims with additional background circumstances that were not required for a traditional discrimination claim. More >
Supreme Court Remodels Title VII Religious Accommodations in Groff v. DeJoy
For nearly 50 years, the common test of religious accommodation from the Hardison v. Trans World Airlines, Inc. case was that, if a religious accommodation required more than a de minimis cost, it was asking too much of an employer under Title VII. In Groff v. DeJoy, the Supreme Court of the United States decided that this standard needs a reset, and employers may be in for a few changes. More >
Beat the Heat with a Workplace Safety Plan
This summer is proving to be another hot one in many parts of the country, which means the odds of workplace illnesses and injuries relating to excessive temperatures are much higher. In April, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) announced a National Emphasis Program focused on addressing workplace heat hazards, which will entail OSHA conducting inspections to identify heat-related hazards in workplaces both indoors and outdoors. Employers should have a plan to avoid liability for heat-related illnesses and to be prepared should such an inspection occur. More >
An Employer's Guide to Intermittent FMLA Leave
Through the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA), certain employees are entitled to 12 work weeks of unpaid leave under specific medical or family circumstances, such as parental leave or a serious health condition. In some cases, employees eligible under FMLA take their 12 weeks of leave all at once. However, FMLA does not require leave to be used in a single block. Employees with qualifying circumstances may take their allotted leave in smaller increments that amount to as much as 12 work weeks over a 12-month period—but this “intermittent leave” can cause numerous headaches for employers. It’s important for employers to understand how intermittent leave works and how to best handle its effects in the workplace. More >
School's Out, Work's In--Considerations for Seasonal Employment
As summer approaches, many businesses will be thinking about hiring seasonal employees. Whether those are high schoolers looking for pocket change, college students in need of internship credits, or just more sets of hands to assist with the busy months, specific considerations need to be made for your seasonal workers to assure legal compliance. More >
ALERT: Chad C. Brown, Inc. and Horse Trainer Chad Brown must pay $1.6M in Department of Labor Wage and Hour Violations Investigation
In a development that should make every horse operation in Kentucky stand up and take notice, trainer Chad Brown will pay $1.6 million to cover back wages, liquidated damages and civil penalties for what the Department of Labor (“DOL”) considers to be willful violations of the Fair Labor Standards Act (“FLSA”) and the H-2B non-immigrant visa program. More >
Five things for HR Professionals to Double-Check Yesterday (Or as Soon as Possible)
In the day-to-day rush of business, it’s easy to overlook key employment issues, but they have a way of turning into true headaches for HR professionals. Below are five HR matters that have a habit of becoming bigger problems for employers, and if you aren’t paying attention to them, you may be putting the business at serious risk. More >
FMLA Retaliation in a Cat's Paw
FMLA (Family Medical Leave Act) retaliation law expanded in 2017 – about the size of a cat’s paw, which, in this instance, is pretty big. “Cat’s paw” here describes a situation where someone other than an employment decision-maker convinces (or dupes) the decision-maker to take an adverse employment action against another employee. (For those unfamiliar with the phrase, “cat’s paw” is derived from a fable wherein a monkey tricks a cat into pulling roasted chestnuts out of a fire for it to eat, burning the cat’s paws in the process. The phrase is used to describe situations where one person is unwittingly used by another for the other’s purposes.) When this is done with retaliatory intent, is the employer then liable under FMLA for retaliation? The answer, according to the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals (this federal circuit covers Kentucky), is “yes” in the case of Marshall v. Rawlings. More >
Employers: Don’t Let Bad Weather Rain on Your Parade
The weather outside is terrible, and you want to close down your business for the duration. Can you cancel a work day or send your employees home early without pay for the duration of the closure? The answer is a bit complicated, and it depends on each employee’s classification as non-exempt or exempt where the overtime rules are concerned. More >
E-Cigarettes and Workplace Smoking Policies: To Ban or Not to Ban, that is the Question
Smoking in the workplace is slowly becoming an antiquated notion. Federal and state laws ban smoking in some places, and an increasing patchwork of local ordinances decreases the availability of indoor and even outdoor smoking in some circumstances. Complicating matters, as it usually does, is the rise of new technology that straddles the line between permissible and impermissible conduct – the e-cigarette. The question employers now have to struggle with is whether these devices, which purport to alleviate the harmful effects of smoke on both the user and those inhaling second-hand, should fall under broad workplace bans on smoking. More >
