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Employment Law

When you have no control over harasser, treat it like co-worker harassment

03/05/2013
According to a recent 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals ruling, when the alleged harassment comes from customers and others over whom the employer has limited control, the rules regarding co-worker harassment apply.

Isolated sexist remark alone won’t lose lawsuit

03/05/2013

Some managers are just clueless about how to treat employees. You certainly don’t want to encourage boorish behavior. At the same time, you shouldn’t worry that a relatively harmless verbal blunder will land you on the losing end of a discrimination or harassment lawsuit. Just make sure your core HR processes are solid.

RIF looming? Base layoffs on logical criteria

03/05/2013

When business is down and you need to make cost-saving cuts, it can be tempting to use that as an excuse to shed a “troublemaking” employee. Don’t do it.

Safelite Glass retaliation claim reflects poorly on HR

03/05/2013
A Safelite AutoGlass franchise in Enfield, N.C., has agreed to settle an EEOC sexual harassment and retaliation suit filed by a former HR assistant who claimed the HR manager made unwanted sexual comments and touched her inappropriately.

Temps win $334,000 settlement in reverse-discrimination case

03/05/2013
PBM Graphics, a Research Triangle printing firm, has agreed to settle a national-origin EEOC discrimination claim filed by temporary workers who claim the firm unfairly favored His­­panic temps over non-Hispanics.

Title VII doesn’t cover sexual orientation

03/05/2013
While several ballot initiatives nationwide show there has been a change in how the general public perceives same-sex relationships, sexual orientation is still not a protected class under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act.

Court: ‘X’ must mark the spot on EEOC forms

03/05/2013

Employees who claim discrimination sometimes fill out EEOC complaint forms before they hire an attorney. That means they often fail to correctly mark the boxes that indicate the type of discrimination they are alleging. Fortunately, courts won’t allow claims for other forms of discrimination if an unchecked box on the form ­covered the claim the employee later asserts.

Protect against bias allegations: Involve hiring manager in any termination decision

03/05/2013
It’s a good standard policy: The person (or persons) who made the hiring decision should also take part in any firing decision. That way, the employee can’t argue that discrimination based on an obvious protected characteristic like race, sex or handicap must have been at work.

When pregnant worker can’t perform, factor in ADA, FMLA, PDA

03/05/2013
It can be complicated to handle a pregnant employee when she can’t perform some part of her job. That’s because three federal laws—the ADA, the FMLA and the Pregnancy Discrimination Act—intersect to provide protection for some pregnant workers who have medical restrictions.

In Burnsville, religious bias defense doesn’t have a prayer

03/05/2013
Altec Industries has agreed to pay a job applicant $25,000 after it refused to hire the Seventh-Day Adventist to work at its Burnsville, N.C., facility. The applicant alleged that when he revealed that his religion forbade him to work from sundown on Friday to sundown on Saturday, the company refused to hire him.