Earlier this week, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce told a Texas federal judge to block the Federal Trade Commission’s final Noncompete Rule, which would impose a comprehensive ban on new noncompetes with all workers, including senior executives. Here is a link to the 40-page brief. But I’ll break it down for you in […]
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. A retaliation claim has three elements: a protected activity, […]
Court: Denying coverage for gender-affirming care to transgender employees is sex discrimination
If your business provides a self-funded health insurance plan to its employees, that health plan covers “medically necessary” services, and you’re not keen on defending sex discrimination claims, then keep reading. Yesterday, the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed a lower court ruling that an employer cannot exclude coverage for […]
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. Last night, I read a recent decision from a Pennsylvania federal judge. The plaintiff, an Asian American, testified at his deposition that his supervisor often […]
Congress takes a step closer to ending forced arbitration of age bias claims
Yesterday, the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee announced that it had advanced the Protecting Older Americans Act, which would invalidate forced arbitration clauses requiring employees to arbitrate age discrimination claims, whether for disparate treatment, disparate impact, harassment, or retaliation. 15 Senators voted in favor and 6 against. The legislation, introduced in […]
A new bill in Congress would uncap damages in federal discrimination lawsuits
Occasionally, I post about MONSTER discrimination jury verdicts, some in the seven and eight figures. I do it for shock value and, often, the clicks. (Guilty as charged.) But posts about the subsequent remittitur, where a federal judge slashes the compensatory or punitive damages award to $300,000 or less, don’t […]