Allyn & Fortuna LLPPaula Lopez, July 31, 2014. Last week, Governor Andrew Cuomo signed legislation that will provide unpaid interns throughout the State of New York with the same state law protections against discrimination and sexual harassment in the workplace as paid employees. The amended law takes effect immediately. Until recently, only unpaid interns in Oregon and Washington D.C. were similarly protected. Earlier this year, the New York City Council, by unanimous vote, passed an amendment to the City’s Human Rights Law, extending its anti-discrimination and anti-harassment provisions to unpaid interns….
Paula Lopez, May 28, 2014. On April 22, 2014, the Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, in EEOC v. Ford Motor Co., rejected Ford’s position that its employee’s presence at the workplace is necessary to perform her essential job functions and found that Ford failed to establish that telecommuting, in this instance, would impose an undue hardship on an employer obligated to provide a reasonable accommodation under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). In doing so, the Sixth Circuit upended the typical deference given to an employer’s…
Paula Lopez, February 5, 2014. Employers in New York City and New Jersey are now required to provide reasonable accommodations to pregnant employees. While State and Federal laws prohibit employers from discriminating against pregnant employees, none of these laws require employers to provide reasonable accommodations. Instead, reasonable accommodations have only been required to the extent that they are available to similarly-situated non-pregnant employees. Effective January 30, 2014, the New York City Human Rights Law was amended to prohibit discrimination based on pregnancy, childbirth or related medical conditions. And,…
Megan Muoio, July 2, 2013. The U.S. Supreme Court recently issued an important decision regarding Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, which prohibits employers and their agents from discriminating against workers on account of their race, color, religion, sex or national origin. The case, Vance v. Ball State University, involved the question of who qualifies as an agent of the employer in an action for workplace harassment. The Supreme Court in Vance, issued in June 2013, severely limited employers’ liability for the discriminatory acts of supervisory employees whose…