Feature
Family responsibility discrimination
Excerpted from North Dakota Employment Law Letter and written by attorneys at the law firm of Vogel Law Firm.
Consider the following two scenarios:
- A male employee requests extended leave to provide at-home care to a sick child. Instead of evaluating the request based on his eligibility for leave, the employer questions why the child's mother can't care for her.
- A qualified female employee with two preschool children is considered a "poor fit" for a promotion because the job requires out-of-town travel and would reduce her parenting time.
Although you may not have experienced those situations, you can probably recognize the cultural stereotype that mothers should be responsible for taking care of children. Unfortunately, factoring in that stereotype when making employment decisions is a form of gender discrimination known as family responsibility discrimination (FRD).
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Employers in the Courtroom
Inappropriate comments cost employer
Excerpted from Nevada Employment Law Letter and written by attorneys at the law firm of Lewis and Roca LLP.
by Von S. Heinz
Those of us old enough to remember TV talk show host Art Linkletter will recall his perpetual refrain, "Kids say the darndest things!" Sometimes the darndest things come from the mouths of managers and supervisors, no matter their age.
Let's look at a new lawsuit that just landed in Nevada federal court. As always, we emphasize that these are just allegations, and a jury will decide their truthfulness.
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I-9s
What would a company do if a catastophic event (fire, tornado, sabotage, etc.) caused the loss of its I-9's?
HRAnnie, IN
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Employers in the Courtroom
Retaliation claims allowed under Section 1981
From Illinois Employment Law Letter
Oftentimes a disgruntled employee filing suit will assert different, sometimes overlapping, claims in the hope of increasing the odds of recovery. Sometimes that strategy works, and other times a court will toss out a potentially duplicative claim.
Several years ago, a former restaurant manager at Cracker Barrel filed a lawsuit, claiming that he could recover for the exact same allegations of race discrimination and retaliation under two different statutes — Title VII and one of the Civil War-era civil rights acts, known as a "Section 1981" claim.
The federal district court tossed out the Section 1981 claim before trial, but according to the Seventh Circuit, the manager will get his day in court.
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