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Discrimination / Harassment

Johnson & Johnson sued again, this time from the executive suite

02/01/2007

A former chief medical officer for Johnson & Johnson’s Ethicon Inc. has filed a retaliation and discrimination lawsuit, claiming the company fired him for voicing product safety concerns and pushing for product recalls …

Beware personal liability for COBRA, FMLA, state bias law

02/01/2007

As if life in HR weren’t hard enough, a federal court has clarified when you may be held individually liable for mistakes in administering anti-discrimination and benefit laws …

Reversing disciplinary decisions can spark bias lawsuit

02/01/2007

If you punished two employees for the same misdeed but only one asked you to reverse the decision, consider the legal ramifications first. If you grant “amnesty” to one employee but not the other, you could trigger a discrimination lawsuit …

Part-time, ‘as-needed’ employees can still sue for bias

02/01/2007

Employees can sue for discrimination if you illegally figure their race, sex, age, religion, disability or pregnancy status into their termination. That’s true even if an employee is a part-timer who works only a few hours on an as-needed basis …

Inheriting staff? Setting higher standards is perfectly legal

02/01/2007

If you’re part of a new management team bent on improving overall performance, don’t let lawsuit fears keep you from imposing higher standards on inherited staff …

College sues feds over the right to post Christians-only job ads

02/01/2007

Geneva College in Beaver Falls recently filed a lawsuit against federal and state labor officials after it was asked to strike a Christianity requirement from help-wanted ads before posting them on Team Pennsylvania CareerLink …

Irony: Motherhood Maternity settles pregnancy-bias suit

02/01/2007

The EEOC has signaled that it will aggressively pursue employers that discriminate against pregnant applicants or employees. One ironic example: Motherhood Maternity has agreed to pay $375,000 to settle a pregnancy discrimination and retaliation lawsuit …

Funeral home company sued over wages, bias, harassment

02/01/2007

One of the world’s largest funeral home companies faces a class-action lawsuit by up to 6,000 current and former employees for failure to pay back wages and overtime of between $40 and $70 million …

TV station employee ordered to return stolen information

02/01/2007

A federal judge has ruled that CBS was correct in requesting that an employee at its Pittsburgh KDKA-TV station return all the confidential information she gathered from her boss’s desk and computer …

Workers’ comp claim can’t be basis for Title VII retaliation

02/01/2007

One part of the federal law that bans job discrimination (Title VII of the Civil Rights Act) makes it illegal to retaliate against employees who engage in “protected activity,” such as filing a discrimination complaint. But here’s a key point to remember: That protected activity must be related to discrimination claims under Title VII …