Discrimination

  • November 13, 2024

    4th Circ. Won't Rethink Ex-Development Director's Wage Case

    The Fourth Circuit declined Wednesday to reconsider its decision affirming a North Carolina city's win on a former development director's claims for unpaid overtime, turning down the former employee's argument that the record did not make clear that she was classified as exempt under federal law.

  • November 13, 2024

    Former Fla. Law Prof Turns To 11th Circ. For Reinstatement

    A former tenured professor at Florida A&M University College of Law has asked the Eleventh Circuit to be reinstated, arguing that the university wrongly terminated her in retaliation for suing it under the federal Equal Pay Act.

  • November 13, 2024

    3 Tips For Addressing Post-Election Workplace Friction

    President-elect Donald Trump’s electoral victory and the policy changes it portends will leave some people exuberant and others furious. Here are three tips employers can use to minimize political friction among workers while staying on the right side of the law.

  • November 13, 2024

    Worker Says Hospital Fired Her For Flagging Discrimination

    A Boston hospital refused to promote an assistant because of her age, stood in the way of her disability leave request and then fired her after she complained about harassment by her supervisor, according to a suit filed in Massachusetts federal court.

  • November 13, 2024

    MVP: Duane Morris' Gerald L. Maatman Jr.

    Gerald L. Maatman Jr. of Duane Morris LLP has helped his clients fend off potentially catastrophic exposures, including a suit alleging Geico misclassified thousands of insurance agents, by utilizing defense strategies to gut the claims before courts were able to assess the merits of the case, earning him a spot as one of the 2024 Law360 Employment MVPs.

  • November 12, 2024

    Merrill Lynch Disfavors Black And Female Advisers, Suit Says

    Two longtime Merrill Lynch financial advisers have filed a proposed class action against Bank of America and its subsidiary Merrill Lynch alleging the firms' policies systematically discriminate against African American and female advisers by favoring white male colleagues in teaming and account distribution practices.

  • November 12, 2024

    Judge Notes 'Serious Issue' In Fired Firm Worker's Appeal

    The outcome of a fired Whitman Breed Abbott & Morgan LLC legal assistant's appeal of her loss in a disability discrimination suit may hinge on whether there is a genuine dispute about the demands of the job, a Connecticut judge signaled Tuesday. The judge noted a "substantial" disagreement about whether the position was supposed to be a hybrid of remote and in-person.

  • November 12, 2024

    SkyWest Had 'Lewd, Crude' Work Environment, Jury Hears

    SkyWest Airlines enabled a workplace that was hostile to women, a jury heard during opening arguments Tuesday, driving a woman who worked at the company to consider suicide in the face of unrelenting sexual assault jokes and supervisors who didn't take her concerns seriously.

  • November 12, 2024

    5th Circ. Backs Dismissal Of Black Tech's Race Bias Suit

    The Fifth Circuit rejected a Black worker's bid to revive his suit claiming his pay was cut by a construction and maintenance services company because of his race, ruling his case is devoid of detail that would allow a court to find that bias plagued his employment.

  • November 12, 2024

    University Of Washington Scores Worker Vax Suit Dismissal

    A Washington federal judge has thrown out a lawsuit by a group of healthcare workers who alleged the University of Washington denied their religious exemptions from a COVID-19 vaccination requirement, saying the university was justified in firing the workers to prevent patients and employees from being exposed to the virus.

  • November 12, 2024

    American Airlines Escapes Pandemic Early Retirement Suit

    A Texas federal court on Tuesday agreed to permanently toss a group of flight attendants' suit against American Airlines Inc. alleging they were misled into taking a less favorable retirement package during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, finding a suit dismissed earlier over the same conduct bars their claims. 

  • November 12, 2024

    3rd Circ. Won't Revive Port Authority Worker's Race Bias Suit

    The Third Circuit won't revive a Black woman's suit claiming the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey didn't promote her because of her race and her complaints about discrimination, ruling that the bistate agency had legitimate, nondiscriminatory reasons for not promoting her.

  • November 12, 2024

    Accenture Shouldn't Face Sex Harassment Suit, Judge Says

    Professional services company Accenture should escape a former management consulting analyst's lawsuit claiming they were forced to resign because the company mishandled reports about a supervisor's sexually inappropriate messages, a Georgia federal magistrate judge said, finding most of the worker's claims were filed too late.

  • November 12, 2024

    7th Circ. Overturns JBS' Win In Worker's Color Bias Suit

    A Seventh Circuit panel breathed new life into a color discrimination suit by an employee of Wisconsin beef processing plant JBS Green Bay, saying the case should not have been tossed so soon.

  • November 12, 2024

    Ga. Health Board Fired Worker For Reporting Bias, Suit Says

    The Fulton County Board of Health has been sued in Georgia federal court by a white former employee who alleges she was suspended from her job and then fired for reporting racial discrimination.

  • November 12, 2024

    Job Transfer Enough To Buoy Sex Bias Suit, 2nd Circ. Says

    The Second Circuit ruled Tuesday that an Israeli bank must face a suit from a former executive assistant who said she faced sexist blowback for complaining that her boss came to work with COVID-19, saying her allegation of a retaliatory job transfer was enough to sustain the case.

  • November 12, 2024

    3rd Circ. Says County Not Liable For Accused Harassers' Acts

    The Third Circuit refused to give a Delaware county worker a second shot at his suit claiming one male colleague targeted him with homophobic and racist harassment and another sexually assaulted him, saying the worker didn't do enough to put the company on notice that it needed to intervene.

  • November 12, 2024

    MVP: deRubertis Law's David M. deRubertis

    Worker-side lawyer David deRubertis, who runs his own firm, says he has helped workers win $526 million in damages from their employers in the past two years alone, earning him a spot as one of the 2024 Law360 Employment MVPs.

  • November 12, 2024

    High Court Turns Away Fired Cop's Race Discrimination Suit

    The U.S. Supreme Court refused Tuesday to review a Black police officer's suit alleging a New York town unlawfully fired her after she hurt her back, leaving in place the Second Circuit's determination that she lacked evidence of white men being treated better.

  • November 08, 2024

    BCBS Hit With $12.7M Verdict In Worker's Vax Mandate Suit

    A Michigan federal jury on Friday awarded $12.69 million to a former Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan employee who said she was fired after her employer failed to accommodate her religious beliefs, which she said prevented her from getting the COVID-19 vaccine.

  • November 08, 2024

    Worker Advocates Will Be On Defense In Trump's 2nd Term

    Worker-side lawyers are buckling up for a challenging four years under President-elect Donald Trump, during which they anticipate a rollback of civil rights regulations and a gutting of federal enforcement agencies. But they also say they're more prepared to fight than they were in 2016. Here, Law360 speaks with the lawyers about major challenges they're anticipating and some of their early plans.

  • November 08, 2024

    Ex-Elanco IP Lawyer Lodges Gender Discrimination Suit

    A female former in-house intellectual property lawyer at Elanco Animal Health Inc. sued the pharmaceutical company for gender discrimination in Indiana federal court, alleging she was passed over for a promotion in favor of a less qualified man who later mistreated the women on staff.

  • November 08, 2024

    NYC Water Worker Alleges Retaliation For Off-Duty Pot Use

    A municipal water treatment worker has filed a discrimination lawsuit against the New York City Department of Environmental Protection claiming he was wrongly punished for his legal off-duty use of cannabis and wrongly terminated for refusing to take a drug test when he was actually suffering a medical emergency.

  • November 08, 2024

    DOJ Says Miss. Senate Stiffed Black Atty On Equal Pay

    The U.S. Department of Justice alleged in a race bias suit filed in Mississippi federal court Friday that the state Senate paid a Black attorney at times less than half of what her white colleagues were paid even though they completed the same work.

  • November 08, 2024

    DLA Piper's Performance Critique Is Bogus, Fired Atty Says

    A former DLA Piper associate told a New York federal court that her pregnancy bias case against the firm should be heard by a jury, arguing the firm's assertion that she was fired for careless work is contradicted by bonuses she was given and a lack of disciplinary records.

Expert Analysis

  • Navigating Harassment Complaints From Trans Employees

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    The Eleventh Circuit's recent decision in Copeland v. Georgia Department of Corrections, concerning the harassment of a transgender employee, should serve as a cautionary tale for employers, but there are steps that companies can take to create a more inclusive workplace and mitigate the risks of claims from transgender and nonbinary employees, say Patricia Konopka and Ann Thomas at Stinson.

  • Employer Considerations Before Title IX Rule Goes Into Effect

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    While the U.S. Department of Education's final rule on Title IX is currently published as an unofficial version, institutions and counsel should take immediate action to ensure they are prepared for the new requirements, including protections for LGBTQ+ and pregnant students and employees, before it takes effect in August, say Jeffrey Weimer and Cori Smith at Reed Smith.

  • 5 Employer Actions Now Risky After Justices' Title VII Ruling

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    Last week in Muldrow v. St. Louis, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that harm didn't have to be significant to be considered discriminatory under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, making five common employer actions vulnerable to litigation, say Kellee Kruse and Briana Scholar at The Employment Law Group.

  • Breaking Down EEOC's Final Rule To Implement The PWFA

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    Attorneys at Littler highlight some of the key provisions of the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission's final rule and interpretive guidance implementing the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act, which is expected to be effective June 18, and departures from the proposed rule issued in August 2023.

  • How To Prepare As Employee Data Reporting Deadlines Near

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    As filing deadlines approach, government contractors and private companies alike should familiarize themselves with recent changes to federal and California employee data reporting requirements and think strategically about registration of affirmative action plans to minimize the risk of being audited, say Christopher Durham and Zev Grumet-Morris at Duane Morris.

  • Address Complainants Before They Become Whistleblowers

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    A New York federal court's dismissal of a whistleblower retaliation claim against HSBC Securities last month indicates that ignored complaints to management combined with financial incentives from regulators create the perfect conditions for a concerned and disgruntled employee to make the jump to federal whistleblower, say attorneys at Cooley.

  • Why Corporate DEI Challenges Increasingly Cite Section 1981

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    As legal challenges to corporate diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives increase in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling on race-conscious college admissions last year, Section 1981 of the Civil Rights Act is supplanting Title VII as conservative activist groups' weapon of choice, say Mike Delikat and Tierra Piens at Orrick.

  • Inside OMB's Update On Race And Ethnicity Data Collection

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    The Office of Management and Budget's new guidelines for agency collection of data on race and ethnicity reflect societal changes and the concerns of certain demographics, but implementation may be significantly burdensome for agencies and employers, say Joanna Colosimo and Bill Osterndorf at DCI Consulting.

  • New Wash. Laws Employers Should Pay Attention To

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    The Washington Legislature ended its session last month after passing substantial laws that should prompt employers to spring into action — including a broadened equal pay law to cover classes beyond gender, narrowed sick leave payment requirements for construction workers and protections for grocery workers after a merger, say Hannah Ard and Alayna Piwonski at Lane Powell.

  • The Shifting Landscape Of Physician Disciplinary Proceedings

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    Though hospitals have historically been able to terminate doctors' medical staff privileges without fear of court interference, recent case law has demonstrated that the tides are turning, especially when there is evidence of unlawful motivations, say Dylan Newton and Michael Horn at Archer & Greiner.

  • Anti-DEI Complaints Filed With EEOC Carry No Legal Weight

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    Recently filed complaints against several companies' diversity, equity and inclusion programs alleging unlawful discrimination against white people do not require a response from the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, and should not stop employers from rooting out ongoing discriminatory practices, says former EEOC general counsel David Lopez.

  • How DEI Programs Are Being Challenged In Court And Beyond

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    In the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court's affirmative action decision last year declaring the consideration of race in university admissions unconstitutional, employers should keep abreast of recent litigation challenging diversity, equity and inclusion training programs, as well as legislation both supporting and opposing DEI initiatives in the workplace, say attorneys at Skadden.

  • What Minority Biz Law Ruling Could Mean For Private DEI

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    A Texas federal court’s recent decision to strike down key provisions of the Minority Business Development Act illustrates the wide-reaching effects of the U.S. Supreme Court's 2023 Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard decision across legal contexts, say attorneys at Jenner & Block.