Fiona W. Ong

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Ah, the French. They have such a … cosmopolitan attitude towards sex. This was on display in a recent article that caught my eye, “Frenchman’s death during sex while on business trip a ‘workplace accident,’ court rules.” (That’s an attention-getter, isn’t it?)

According to the article, a Frenchman died of a heart attack while having sex with “a total stranger” at her home during an overnight business trip. (How tawdry! How titillating!) His employer denied responsibility for his death under the French equivalent of our workers’ compensation law, which provides compensation to employees/their estates for injury/death on the job. The employer argued that his death “occurred when he had knowingly interrupted his mission for a reason dictated solely by his personal interest, independent of his employment.” More specifically, he was no longer on a “mission” for his employer when he suffered the heart attack, which was attributable to “his sexual act with a complete stranger.” Well, that certainly seems to make sense. Sex is quite personal, isn’t it? (And I am particularly amused by the repeated emphasis on the fact that the sex was with a total or complete stranger. Would it have made a difference if he died while having sex with his wife or mistress? And is anyone else wondering if the “total stranger” was a prostitute?)Continue Reading Death During Sex on Business Trip Was a “Workplace Accident”?!!!

As I was perusing a recently-released volume of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s quarterly Digest of EEO Law (as I am sadly wont to do – really, I need some new hobbies!), I came across an interesting article, “An Overview of Common Remedies Available in Disparate Treatment Claims of Discrimination.” (Of particular note, while the Digest, as well as the article, covers only federal sector employees, we’d expect the EEOC to take the same position with regard to private sector employees.) The article sets forth the types of remedies sought by the EEOC when it finds that an federal employee or applicant has been subjected to disparate treatment discrimination (meaning that they have been individually targeted). Although the majority of the list is rather routine, it does highlight some rather interesting remedies sought by the EEOC, of which employers should be aware.
Continue Reading The EEOC’s Approach to Remedies for Discrimination

Ok, I’ve been practicing law for decades, but there are still things that surprise me. And yesterday I learned something about the Maryland Code – that it actually doesn’t include all the laws! Wait – WHAT?!!!!

Now, I’ve always understood a state’s Code (also known by other names in other states, such as the Statutes or Revised Statutes or General Statutes) to be the official compilation of all the laws in the state. Each year in Maryland, the (majority Democratic) General Assembly passes legislation that is either signed by the (Republican) Governor or allowed to become law without his signature. (Sometimes he vetoes too, but his vetoes often get overridden by an aggressive General Assembly, so the bills still become law). Shortly thereafter, there’s a new version of the Code with the new laws placed into the appropriate section of the Code.
Continue Reading Laws That Aren’t In the State Code?

Years ago, I wrote a blog post, “Two or More Genders? Gender Identity and the EEO-1 Form,” in which I discussed what employers should do when an employee refuses to identify as either male or female for purposes of EEO reporting. At that time, I spoke with the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs about their approach to this issue (which was to assign a sex based on visual identification), but was never able to get the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to respond to me, despite multiple phone calls and emails. Well, now, the EEOC has offered some guidance on a related issue – reporting non-binary employees (those who do not identify as either male or female) on the EEO-1 Component 2 report.
Continue Reading Non-binary Employees and the EEO-1 Report

In an ironic twist, a manager’s alleged attempt to protect an employee from racism resulted in a discrimination claim by that employee.

In Ikome v. CSRA, LLC, the employee hailed from Cameroon and had very dark skin. He helped his employer, an information technology services company, win a contract in North Carolina with the Environmental Protection Agency and became project manager on the contract. Within weeks, however, he was replaced as project manager by a lighter-skinned African-American coworker. In his lawsuit for color and national origin discrimination, he alleges that his manager told him that people in North Carolina are “rednecks” (The manager denied using the term, but the employee’s allegations are assumed to be true at this point in the litigation, before it goes to a jury). The employee interpreted this to mean that rednecks are racist, and a lighter-skinned person would be more acceptable to them.
Continue Reading Attempt to Protect the Employee from Racism Leads to Discrimination Claim!

A recent case caused me significant concern on behalf of employers. As you may know, before an employee may file a federal discrimination lawsuit against their employer, they must first file a charge of discrimination with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. (And, on a related note, just recently, the U.S. Supreme Court held that this charge-filing requirement was a procedural one that could be waived by the employer, as we discussed in our E-lert). But what happens if the EEOC never notifies the employer of the charge?
Continue Reading Penalizing the Employer for the EEOC’s Mistake?

Just in time for Father’s Day, JPMorgan has agreed to pay $5 million dollars to settle a class action lawsuit based on a discriminatory parental leave policy. We previously blogged about this case when the ACLU announced that it was filing a charge of discrimination with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission on behalf of a JPMorgan dad. (and you can check out that blog post for a deeper explanation of the legal underpinnings of this issue, if you’re really interested). But this settlement provides an emphatic (and timely!) reminder to employers to take a look at their maternity/paternity or parental leave policies to make sure they don’t run afoul of the law.
Continue Reading Hey – New Dads Need Leave Too!

The United States Supreme Court has ruled that the requirement to file a charge of discrimination before bringing a discrimination lawsuit is a procedural requirement that may be waived, as opposed to a jurisdictional one that would deprive a court of the ability to even hear the case.
Continue Reading U.S. Supreme Court Finds Charge Filing Requirement to be Procedural, Not Jurisdictional

Governor Hogan announced on May 24, 2019 that he was vetoing HB994, the “Ban the Box” bill, as our partner Liz Torphy-Donzella predicted he would do in our webinar on Maryland’s recently enacted employment laws. This means that, absent a veto override, this bill will not become law. The bill, however, passed with veto-proof majorities in both the House and Senate, so we will likely see a veto override in the next General Assembly session. 
Continue Reading Governor Hogan Vetos the Ban the Box Bill