I love cases with weird facts! And this one has the added benefit of providing an example of a violation of the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act. When I do training on non-discrimination and harassment, I have all sorts of fun and interesting examples of other forms of discrimination – sex, race, age, etc. But not
The Law v. the Law According to the Media
Last Friday afternoon, I was listening to NPR. I am a loyal NPR listener and have been for many years. Sure, I know it has a liberal bias, but I always thought – in fact, trusted – that it at least got the basic facts right. Thus, I was unbelievably dismayed by a story on
LA Labor Unions Seek Exemption From Minimum Wage Increase – Oh the Irony!
Admittedly, as a management-side labor and employment lawyer, I am not always a big fan of the unions. And a recent story in the LA Times just reinforced my negative attitude.
As many of you know, increasing the minimum wage has been a hot political issue, and labor unions have been strong and outspoken advocates
The Wrong Way to Respond to an Employee Complaint…
I enjoy cases with odd facts – and here’s one that unexpectedly came up in the (usually uninteresting) context of a Fair Labor Standards Act retaliation claim – Greathouse v. JHS Security Inc. The boring legal (but important) part of the case is that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit has
Inability to Speak English Is a Disability?!!!
OK, I know that I frequently and flippantly say that, under the expanded American with Disabilities Act, we are all disabled. But the situation described in a recent Washington Post blog found by one of my law partners is really beyond ridiculous! Apparently, individuals who can’t speak English may receive federal Social Security disability benefits!
EEOC Sued For Failing to Accommodate Employee’s Disability
In the vein of “man bites dog,” I particularly enjoyed a recent case in which an employee claims that her employer – the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (?!!!) – failed to accommodate her disability. Yes, the federal agency charged with the enforcement of the Americans with Disabilities Act – the same agency that broadly interprets
Managers Gone Wild on Social Media
People are increasingly turning to social media to vent their frustrations, and those frustrations frequently involve the workplace. The problem is that managers, who are deemed to speak and act for the company as a matter of law, can cause problems with a social media rant.
This issue is on my mind because it recently
Accommodating a Teacher’s Fear of Children?
I love these odd cases – like the one-armed man who wanted to be an “unarmed” security guard, about which I blogged previously. Here’s another one that tickled my funny bone – the teacher with pedophobia, which is a debilitating fear of children! (Let’s just absorb the irony of that for a moment, shall
A Seussian Recitation of Yates v. United States
As we said yesterday, this case is outside our labor and employment law area of practice, but I was really so entertained by it that I couldn’t let it go just yet. So, as inspired by Justice Elena Kagan and with apologies to Dr. Seuss:
The fish on the ship were just too small,
So
The Fisherman and the Sarbanes-Oxley Act
This case, Yates v. United States, is outside our usual employment law zip code, but it’s such a wacky one, it lured us in. It involves a fisherman who failed to preserve, as evidence, undersized fish that he had caught in violation of federal law. A federal agent found the undersized fish during an