Allyn & Fortuna LLPDate: June 22, 2016, Megan J. Muoio In June 2016, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) released the report of its Select Task Force on the Study of Harassment in the Workplace. It has been 30 years since the Supreme Court held in Meritor Savings Bank v. Vinson that harassment is a form of workplace discrimination under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Workplace harassment takes many forms, such as harassment on the basis of sex (which includes sexual orientation, gender identity, and pregnancy),…
Nicholas Fortuna, June 17, 2016 On May 11, 2016 President Obama signed into law the Defend Trade Secrets Act (DTSA), which is an expansion of the Economic Espionage Act. The law provides for the first time a federal cause of action for misappropriation of trade secrets. Previously, state law governed all claims regarding trade secrets. Trade secrets typically include formulas, patterns, compilations, programs, devices, plans, methods, techniques or processes. To be protected, certain common elements must exist: the information is not publically known, reasonable measures have been taken…
Paula Lopez, June 3, 2016. On May 23, 2016, the Supreme Court decided Green v. Brennan, resolving a circuit court split on when the statute of limitations begins to run on an employee’s constructive discharge claim under Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. The Court, in a 7-1 vote, ruled that the statute of limitations begins to run on the date the employee gives the employer notice of his or her resignation, not on the date of the employer’s alleged last discriminatory act that drove the…
By: Megan J. Muoio, March 7, 2016 Currently pending before the Supreme Court is Green v. Brennan, a case from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit that involves the question of when 45-day period to file a claim of constructive discharge as a result of racial discrimination begins to run. The case was argued before the Supreme Court on November 30, 2016. A decision is expected sometime this spring. The appellant Marvin Green was employed by the United States Postal Service as the postmaster…
Diana Uhimov, February 23, 2016 The Compassionate Care Act (CCA) was signed into law in New York in 2014, making New York the 23rd state in the U.S. to legalize medical marijuana. The CCA regulates the manufacture, sale and use of medical marijuana in New York. Under the Act, certified patients are allowed to use marijuana for treatment of a “serious condition” so long as the treatment is prescribed by a certified physician. Additionally, the CCA establishes employment regulations for medical marijuana use, including the creation of new…
By: Megan J. Muoio, November 25, 2015 On October 21, 2015, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a decision by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) finding that two employees were improperly fired because of negative discussion of their employer on the social media site Facebook. The employees were non-union employees at the Triple Play Sports Bar and Grille located in Watertown, Connecticut. In the case before the NLRB, Three D, LLC (Triple Play) was found to have illegally fired two employees in connection with Facebook complaints…
By: Megan J. Muoio, August 26, 2015 On August 17, 2015, the National Labor Relations Board issued a decision reversing the March 26, 2014 decision of NLRB Regional Director Peter Sung Ohr, which found that Northwestern University scholarship football players are employees as defined by the National Labor Relations Act. Eighteen months after the decision by the Regional Director, the NLRB dealt a blow to the Northwestern players’ quest to unionize and be recognized as employees under the National Labor Relations Act. Northwestern University is one of…
By: Megan J. Muoio, July 24, 2015 On July 16, 2015, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) issued a decision affirming that it considers sexual orientation to be covered by Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964’s prohibitions against discrimination on the basis of sex. The decision, which was made 3-2 in an appeal brought by an employee of the Federal Aviation Administration who claimed that he was denied a promotion because he was gay, sets up a conflict between the EEOC and certain…
Paula Lopez, July 6, 2015. On Friday, June 26, 2015, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in a 5-4 decision written by Justice Anthony Kennedy (and joined by Justices Ginsburg, Sotomayor, Kagan and Breyer) that the right to marry is a fundamental right protected by the Fourteenth Amendment. The Supreme Court’s decision in Obergefell et al. v. Hodges, et al. means that all states are required to license a marriage between couples of the same sex and to recognize out of state same-sex marriages. The Supreme Court’s decision reversed…
Paula Lopez, June 5, 2015. On Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court issued its decision in the case EEOC v. Abercrombie & Fitch Stores, Inc., reversing the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeal’s decision holding that Abercrombie could not be held liable on a religious discrimination claim for failure to accommodate. In an 8-1 decision reversing a decision of the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals, the U.S. Supreme Court made it clear that Title VII requires employers to make efforts to accommodate an applicant or employee’s “religious observance and practice”…