Guaranteed confidentiality with regard to employee disputes may be becoming a thing of the past if the current tide of legislation continues. As we blogged about several weeks ago, Congress just banned arbitration agreements for sexual harassment claims. Even more stringent than that new federal legislation, Washington and California have both recently passed a “Silenced
Sexual Harassment
Blocking the Gate to Arbitrate: Congress Passes Law Banning Pre-Dispute Arbitration Agreements on Sex Harassment Claims
Both the House and Senate have approved a bill that allows victims of workplace sexual assault and sexual harassment to take their claims to court instead of being forced to arbitration. In a rare show of bipartisanship, Congress passed the Ending Forced Arbitration of Sexual Assault and Sexual Harassment Act of 2021. As of right…
Sunday May Still Be Sacred: Texas Jury Sides with Employee Who Chose Church Service Over Work
If an employee misses work to attend church on Sunday morning and the company subsequently fires her, is that religious discrimination? A jury in Texas recently said yes and awarded the plaintiff close to $350,000. The verdict is a reminder to employers to remember your religious accommodation obligations.
Trouble with supervisor and work scheduled for
…
For Employers in the #MeToo Era: It’s Not the Harassment Claim, It’s the Retaliation Claim that Gets You
The era of #MeToo has caused employers to hyper-focus on harassment claims. They have fine-tuned their policies, investigated claims more carefully, and acted swiftly and sometimes even in a draconian fashion upon finding any level of harassment. In most situations, these actions can effectively eliminate an employee’s viable claims of harassment. We are seeing this…
Exit EEOC? Supreme Court Rules that Charge-Filing Process Is Not Jurisdictional, But It’s Still Important
In a case that garnered big headlines, the Supreme Court weighed in yesterday on whether a claimant’s failure to amend her EEOC charge divests the federal court from hearing part of her Title VII claim. While the decision makes some strong statements about the purpose of an EEOC charge in Title VII litigation, it is…
Bag the Gag Provision: New Jersey Is the Latest State to Restrict Non-disclosure Agreements in Settlements
You finally settled that tough discrimination or harassment claim. Now you just need to ink the settlement agreement, and obviously it will include a standard non-disclosure clause to prevent your claimant from ever talking about the events or settlement amount ever again – right? Well, depending on the state you are in, not so fast.…
Don’t Ignore the Kissing Supervisor—Court Rules that Employer’s Knowledge of Past Behavior Negates Faragher-Ellerth Defense
Employment lawyers and most HR professionals are familiar with the Faragher-Ellerth defense to a claim of sexual harassment. In short, if an employer can show that (1) it exercised reasonable care to prevent and correct promptly any sexually harassing behavior, AND (2) the employee unreasonably failed to take advantage of available preventive or corrective opportunities,…
Revamping Your Anti-Harassment Programs
In the wake of the #MeToo movement, I have clients wanting to know what they can do both to improve their workplace and protect themselves. They all have good policies and regularly train supervisors and employees on them. So what’s next? Although there is no silver bullet, I suggest you start with the following three…
Winning Harassment Claims in the #MeToo Era
In this #MeToo era, employers are, understandably, a little sensitive when someone raises a claim of harassment. Even with the heightened sense of peril, companies should remember that if they are doing the right thing—having effective policies in place and handling complaints appropriately—they can still prevail. A recent decision, Peebles v. Greene County Hospital Board…
Making Sure Your Company Is Not the Next Harassment Hashtag
Like every other employment lawyer in America, I have been giving a good bit of thought to #MeToo and what it means for my clients. Many (although certainly not all) of the stories under this hashtag are about unreported harassment—egregious behavior that people did not feel comfortable reporting. My clients want to hear about a…