Contact Us
Subscribe to this blog via RSS
Join us on LinkedInCategories
- SCOTUS
- Overtime
- Overtime Rule
- Federal Trade Commission
- FTC
- Service Animals
- Remote Work
- Occupational Safety and Health Administration (“OSHA”)
- Minors
- Work from Home
- Workplace health
- Americans with Disabilities Act ("ADA")
- COVID-19
- Intellectual Property
- Trade Secrets
- Worker Misclassification
- FMLA Retaliation
- Non-exempt employees
- Family and Medical Leave Act (“FMLA”)
- Wage and Hour
- ADA Amendments Act of 2008 (“ADAAA”)
- Adverse Employment Action
- Civil Rights
- Compliance
- Department of Labor ("DOL")
- EEOC
- Employee Handbook
- Employee Misconduct
- Employer Group Health Plans
- Employment Law
- Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA)
- HIPAA
- Independent Contractors
- National Labor Relations Act (NLRA)
- National Labor Relations Board (NLRB)
- Pregnancy Discrimination Act
- Social Media
- Social Media Policies
- Telecommuting
- Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act
- U.S. Department of Labor
- U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (“EEOC”)
- U.S. Supreme Court
- Union
- Criminal Background Checks
- Employee Training
- Federal Department of Labor
- Government employees
- Kentucky Wage and Hour Act
- Payroll
- At-will employment
- Employee Benefits
- Employment Practices Liability Insurance
- Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act ("GINA")
- Litigation
- Non-Compete Agreement
- Online Defamation
- Paid Time Off ("PTO")
- Pension Plans
- Record Retention
- Reference checks
- Severance Pay
- Supervisor
- Tangible employment actions
- Title VII retaliation cases
- Crisis Management
- OSHA
- Workplace Politics
- Business Insurance
- Employee Contracts
- Employment Discrimination Laws
- Hiring and Firing
- Internet & Media Law
- Kentucky Labor Cabinet
- Salary Threshold
- Unemployment Benefits
- Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act
- USERRA
- Workplace Discrimination, Harassment and Retaliation
Facebook is Not a Picket Line
The National Labor Relations Act protects the rights of employees to connect and address conditions at work, and recent decisions have held that this protection extends to certain work-related conversations on social media.[1] However, it has yet to be determined exactly how far this protection will reach. More >
The Big and Small Implications in Perez v. Mortgage Bankers Association
There are two important takeaways from Perez v. Mortgage Bankers Association,[1] one with a broad scope and the other much narrower. The broader ruling exempts agency interpretations of laws and regulations from any notice and comment requirements under the Administrative Procedures Act (“APA”), allowing agencies to substantially alter interpretations without notice. On a different note, however, is the finding that Department of Labor (“DoL”) Fair Labor Standards Act (“FLSA”) classification interpretations are subject to change at any moment. More >
Vetting Employees via Social Media – Walking the Digital Tightrope
As Comedy Central is discovering with the new host of The Daily Show, Trevor Noah, failure to fully vet an employee’s social media activity can have unexpected consequences. At the same time, an employee’s social media profiles can yield information that may be harmful to employers in the hiring process. There are potential pitfalls to examining an applicant’s social media profiles both too closely and not closely enough, and the lines are difficult to discern. More >
EEOC Consent Decrees are its Most Powerful Enforcement Mechanisms
The vast majority of settlements between an employer and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (“EEOC”) take the form of a court-approved consent decree. This document is a public record designed to highlight and account for certain wrongs in a way that sidesteps an admission of guilt in favor of the implementation of remedial measures to prevent further unlawful practices. A consent decree includes certain action and reporting mandates that employers must follow, providing the EEOC with the most powerful enforcement tool in its arsenal. More >
Pregnancy Discrimination Claims after Young v. UPS
It was a difficult delivery, but the Supreme Court in Young v. UPS[1] gave birth to a new test in determining whether an employer has violated the Pregnancy Discrimination Act (“PDA”)[2]. More >
Sexual Harassment Mistakes Employers Make
Sexual harassment claims can quickly become a nightmare for employers, but so many aspects of the nightmare are caused in part by the employer’s own actions. The employer has opportunities to mitigate the damage in two key areas – the sexual harassment policy itself before the alleged harassment incident and the investigation that takes place afterword. This post will look at mistakes made in these two particular areas that can hurt employers and lead to potentially costly damages. More >
Is it Time to Review Your Employee Handbooks?
On March 18th, National Labor Relations Board (“NLRB”) General Counsel Richard F. Griffin, Jr., issued a report[1] (“the Report”) concerning employer rules and employee handbooks in light of recent employer rule cases. Most of the violations found in these cases occurred under the first prong of the two-prong the test in Lutheran Heritage Village-Livonia,[2] which looks to whether an employer rule explicitly restricts protected activity under Section 7 of the National Labor Relations Act (“NLRA”). The Report used these cases as a guide to provide clear examples of both illegal rules and their legal counterparts, giving employers a valuable tool in evaluating employee handbooks and workplace rules.
More >
Employers – Don’t Be a Victim of Suspicious Timing
Where there’s smoke, there may be fire – at least, that appears to be a key takeaway from the Seventh Circuit case of Ledbetter v. Good Samaritan Ministries. The holding in this case is predicated on the notion that suspicious timing in an adverse employment action can give rise to a claim of retaliation under Title VII in absence of other solid evidence. More >
Anxiety over Reasonable Accommodation under the ADA for Social Anxiety Disorder
Employers might be just a bit more anxious after learning that the Equal Employment Opportunities Commission (“EEOC”) defined the “ability to interact with others” as a major life activity, bringing social anxiety disorder into the scope of protection afforded by the Americans with Disabilities Act (“ADA”). The Fourth Circuit, in the case of Jacobs v. N.C. Administrative Office of the Courts,[1] recently agreed with the EEOC that social anxiety disorder may be a disability for ADA purposes. For practical purposes, however, the important takeaway in this case is that reasonable accommodation requests should never be taken lightly and all decisions that adversely affect employees should come with ample documentation. More >
What You Didn’t Say Can Be Used Against You in a Court of Law: Perceived Speech is Not Protected Speech
What some might charitably consider a loophole in First Amendment protections of public employees received deferential treatment recently by the Third Circuit. In what seems like an upside-down scenario, the Third Circuit upheld the ability of a public employer to fire an employee for speech that he or she did not actually speak, while that employee likely would have had a claim against his or her employer had he or she actually engaged in the speech that didn’t take place. This confusing result is not the first of its kind, either, and public employees are now on uncertain ground as to whether what they don’t say can be used against them.
More >
