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New York

Timely documentation: Your best legal defense

07/18/2019
What’s the best thing employers can do to win more lawsuits? Document every workplace decision contemporaneously, at the time you make it.

Keep all drafts of disciplinary documents

07/17/2019
Sometimes, a performance appraisal or disciplinary report will go through several drafts. It’s a good idea to keep every one of those preliminary versions. If you are sued, you may be glad you retained the draft versions.

Poor review alone isn’t enough to win lawsuit

07/11/2019
Employees generally must show they suffered an adverse employment action before they can win a discrimination lawsuit. Merely receiving a poor evaluation, without other consequences, isn’t enough.

Focus reviews on performance, not emotions

07/09/2019
When you evaluate an employee who isn’t living up to performance expectations, avoid commenting on her emotional state. Focus on objective criteria like unmet goals or sales quotas. Otherwise, you risk a lawsuit claiming discrimination on the basis of disability.

Same broken rule, different discipline: Show why you punished one more harshly

06/28/2019
Courts like to see employers equally treat workers who break the same rules. That doesn’t mean employers have no wiggle room. The key is to document why one worker deserves a different punishment than another for breaking the same rule.

2nd Circuit just made it harder for disabled employees to sue

06/13/2019
In a surprise win for New York employers trying to manage disabled workers, it just became a bit more difficult for plaintiffs in the 2nd Circuit to win disability discrimination claims brought under the ADA.

Long Island company settles EEOC bias case for $407,000

06/13/2019
West Babylon-based A&F Fire Protection Co. Inc. has agreed to pay a class of black and Hispanic employees $407,000 to compensate them for blatant racial discrimination, harassment and retaliation.

Carefully track all details when replacing older worker

06/13/2019
To win an age discrimination case, a worker usually must prove she was replaced by someone significantly younger.

Work just sorta stinks? Judge says, ‘Too bad!’

06/13/2019
When it comes to work, pleasant is often good enough. Perfection is probably too much to ask for. Courts understand this, and won’t let a lawsuit advance if it’s just based on common gripes.

Conversations among co-workers can be enough to certify class-action lawsuit

06/13/2019
When an employee claims she wasn’t paid properly under the Fair Labor Standards Act, she can ask the court to represent all other similarly situated workers in a potentially costly class-action suit. It doesn’t take much more than a few casual conversations with co-workers for a single plaintiff to move a class-action lawsuit forward.