By: Megan J. Muoio, June 2, 2017 On March 27, 2017, a three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit decided in favor of the plaintiff in Christiansen v. Omnicom Group, Inc., a case involving the issue of sexual orientation discrimination under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. In Christiansen, a gay employee brought a suit against his employer under the sex discrimination provision of Title VII. The employer moved to dismiss the complaint, arguing that sexual orientation discrimination…
Diana Uhimov, July 16, 2014. The U.S. Supreme Court unanimously invalidated three of President Obama’s recess appointments to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) as unconstitutional in its June 26, 2014 decision in National Labor Relations Board v. Noel Canning. Despite the fact that these Board members’ positions were filled by valid Senate-confirmed members in August 2013, this decision voids hundreds of NLRB decisions issued between January 2012 and August 2013, because the Board did not have a quorum. The current Board is now obligated to revisit those decisions and either…
Diana Uhimov, March 11, 2014. Early this month, a divided U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the whistleblower provision of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 (SOX) protects employees of private contractors conducting work for publicly-traded companies in the same way as it protects the public company’s employees. The relevant part of the statute at issue states that “no public company … or any … contractor … of such company may [retaliate] against an employee … because of [SOX – protected activity].” The Court found that a plain reading of…