Supreme Court Lowers Discrimination Threshold for Job Transfers
On April 17, 2024, a unanimous U.S. Supreme Court ruling lowered the bar employees must clear to prove discrimination in job transfer lawsuits. In the case at bar, a police officer who worked as a task force officer with an intelligence unit in the FBI was reassigned by a new unit commander who cited that the intelligence unit’s work was “very dangerous.” Her new assignment stripped her of a regular work schedule, a vehicle, and her status with the FBI. The Court reversed the appellate ruling against the officer and outlined a less-stringent test for these types of discrimination claims. Rather
Returning to Work in Tennessee
While many workers were placed on temporary layoff from concerns related to COVID-19, Governor Bill Lee is working to restart the economy in Tennessee after social distancing measures were in effect for several weeks. During the period of the shutdown, many workers utilized Tennessee Unemployment Compensation (TUC) to receive income. Now that businesses are calling their workers back, many are refusing to return out of fears of unsafety in the workplace. The state has said that employees utilizing the TUC must be “willing and able to work” in order to receive the unemployment benefits. This means that as the state
Families First Coronavirus Response Act Signed Into Law, Will Go Into Effect April 1st
On March 18th, the Families First Coronavirus Response Act (the “Act”) was signed into law. The 110-page bill contains, in part, two additional types of employment leave aimed at allowing employees affected by the Coronavirus to take paid leave. The first are new FMLA leave entitlements, and the second is emergency paid sick leave. These additions become effective 15 days after their enactment, and apply to nearly all employers that employ fewer than 500 employees. Under the FMLA leave, as expanded by the Act, covered employers will be required to allow 12 weeks of FMLA leave to certain employees impacted by
Concerned by Coronavirus? Drafting A Work From Home Policy For Your Business
With the anticipated spread of the COVID-19 looming, many employers are looking at work from home policies within their employee handbooks with a more critical eye. While most companies already have some of their workforce telecommunicating, most work from home policies are drafted for those few employees and not for circumstances in which the majority of employees will be working away from the office. A work from home policy is rarely boilerplate language, as it often needs to be adjusted to match its employer, but the below provisions are good additions to any existing policy: Eligibility - First, the policy
Epic Systems Did Not Take the National Labor Relations Board “Out of the Picture”
Employers must remain careful of their employees’ rights under the National Labor Relations Act. ____________________________________________________ We all know, don’t we, that last year the Supreme Court held, in Epic Systems Corp. v. Lewis, 584 U.S.____, 138 S. Ct. 1612 (2018), “that agreements containing class- and collective action waivers and stipulating that employment disputes are to be resolved by individualized arbitration do not violate the National Labor Relations Act [NLRA] and must be enforced as written pursuant to the Federal Arbitration Act.” In re Cordua Restaurants, Inc., 368 NLRB No. 43 at p. 1 (August 14, 2019). So that being the case, employers are
Tennessee SLAPPs Down Efforts of Businesses to Curb Free Speech Rights of Consumers
The expression “everyone’s a critic” is becoming less of an exaggeration, especially in this current age of online reviews, blogs, and Tweets. With myriad number of ways for consumers to leave their two cents in the form of online reviews, businesses are finding themselves on defense when it comes to their online reputations. Some businesses, however, have gone on offense against negative online reviewers using what are known as Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation or SLAPP for short. The underlying goal of a business in SLAPPing the person who left a negative review about that business is to either change
Discrimination Based on Sexual Orientation
The law surrounding whether or not Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 protects claims of discrimination based on sexual orientation has now shifted in two circuits of the federal courts. On April 4, 2017, the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit held in Hively v. Ivy Tech Community College that Title VII does prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation. On February 26, 2018, the Second Circuit in Zarda v. Altitude Express, Inc. followed suit. In December 2016, the Sixth Circuit held in Clemons v. City of Memphis that Title VII does not provide for claims