The Employment Brief | Employment Law | Kollman & Saucier, P.A.

New Fourth Circuit Standard: Single Incident Sufficient For Title VII Hostile Workplace Harassment Claim

Kollman & Saucier

05/14/2015

Employment Discrimination, Hostile Work Environment, Retaliation

Sometimes, once is enough. In a just issued en banc decision that overturns established circuit precedent, the Fourth Circuit held that a single workplace incident was sufficiently severe to trigger Title VII's protection. In Boyer-Liberto v. Fontainebleau Corp., 4th Cir. No 13-1473 (May 7, 2015), an African-American hotel worker was fired after she complained that a white employee had called her a “porch monkey” twice within 24 hours....

Kollman & Saucier

05/06/2015

Agency Activity, Wage & Hour

Secretary of Labor Thomas Perez reported on the Department’s blog yesterday that he has submitted a proposed revised rule to the Office of Management and Budget to address what President Obama believes are deficiencies in federal laws governing overtime pay. Working off the assumption that overtime pay rules have eroded over the years and that a high number of salaried workers who should be getting overtime are not eligible for overtime pay, the...

Kollman & Saucier

04/30/2015

Agency Activity, Supreme Court Decisions

On April 29, 2015, the Supreme Court unanimously vacated a Seventh Circuit decision holding that courts cannot delve into whether the EEOC satisfied the conciliation requirement of Title VII. The EEOC has a legal duty to try settling cases first, but the question before the Court was how much a court could peer into those negotiations to ensure that the EEOC acted in good faith. Ruling against the agency, the Court gave employers a new, albeit...

Kollman & Saucier

04/29/2015

Wage & Hour

The US District Court for Maryland dismissed a complaint filed by three “trainees” of the Maryland Live! Casino’s 12-week “dealer school.” Harbourt v. PPE Casino Resorts Maryland, No. CCB-14-3211 (Apr. 21, 2015). The plaintiffs alleged that they attended the Casino’s complimentary 12-week “dealer school” training course for table games (only one of the three actually completed the course and was employed as a dealer at the Casino)....

Kollman & Saucier

04/28/2015

Employment Discrimination, Supreme Court Decisions

On April 27 the Supreme Court granted certiorari in Green v. Donahoe to determine whether, under federal employment discrimination law, the filing period for a constructive discharge claim begins to run when an employee resigns, as five circuits have held, or at the time of an employer’s last allegedly discriminatory act giving rise to the resignation, as three other circuits have held. See Green v. Donahoe, 760 F.3d 1135 (10th Cir....

Kollman & Saucier

04/22/2015

Employment Discrimination

One of the more interesting (or bizarre) “news” stories of the past few weeks was the one about the Alaska Airlines worker who fell asleep in the cargo hold a plane, awoke mid-flight, and called 9-1-1 to report his dilemma. Napping on the job, and causing a flight to make an early landing, is not good for an employee’s job security. The same is true for employees who create their own break rooms in contravention of employer policy. In a...

Kollman & Saucier

04/17/2015

Agency Activity, Disability & Leave

On April 16, 2015, the EEOC issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking ("NPRM") on how the ADA applies to employer wellness programs that are part of a group health plan. The NPRM will be published in the Federal Register on April 20, 2015, and the public will have a 60 day period within which to file comments. The EEOC may then revise the rule based on the comments before taking final action to implement it. Under Title I of the ADA, employers are...

Kollman & Saucier

04/16/2015

Disability & Leave, Employment Discrimination, Retaliation

Every once in a while, I read a case where my first reaction is: "how does someone like this ever hold a job?" That was my reaction when I read the Court's April 10, 2015 decision in Sharp v. Best Buy Co., Inc. out of the United States District Court for Western District of Kentucky. In Sharp, the plaintiff was an auto technician who suffered from narcolepsy and cataplexy. Best Buy accommodated his conditions by excusing him from shift work, and...

Darrell VanDeusen

04/13/2015

Disability & Leave, Reasonable Accommodations/Undue Burden

Last year the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) tooted its horn with a victory when a three-judge panel on the Sixth Circuit held (2-1) that Ford Motor Company might have violated the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) by failing to permit an employee with Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) from teleworking up to four days a week. Reversing that decision, the en banc Sixth Circuit held (8-5) that there was no ADA violation because...

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Email Updates

New Fourth Circuit Standard: Single Incident Sufficient For Title VII Hostile Workplace Harassment Claim

DOL Announces Revised Overtime Regulations

Supreme Court Rules That Courts May Review Whether The EEOC Has Satisfied Its Duty To Attempt Presuit Conciliation

Casino Dealer “Trainees” Who Attended A 12-Week “Dealer School” Are Not “Employees”

Supreme Court to Decide When the Filing Period for a Constructive Discharge Claim Begins

No Discrimination Claim For Employee Who Set Up Personal Break Room

EEOC Issues Proposed Rule on Workplace Wellness Programs

Business Judgment Rule Supports Best Buy's Firing of Disabled Employee

No Telework Accommodation For IBS Says En Banc Sixth Circuit

Email Updates