Allyn & Fortuna LLPPaula Lopez, April 25, 2024 Last week, the U.S. Supreme Court rendered a unanimous decision making it easier for employees to pursue Title VII claims against an employer for a forced transfer even though the employee’s rank and pay are unaffected. In Muldrow v. City of St. Louis, Missouri, the Court’s decision, written by Justice Elena Kagan, rejected the heightened standard followed by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, as well as numerous other circuits, including the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit,…
Nicholas Fortuna, February 29, 2024 This term the Supreme Court will determine the amount of deference that courts should give federal agencies’ interpretation of laws that they administer. The Court heard two cases, Relentless v. Department of Commerce and Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, challenging a federal rule that requires fisheries to pay salaries of compliance observers on their boats. The payment requirement is based on the interpretation of federal law by a federal agency, National Marine Fisheries Service. At issue, is a broader question: Whether the justices…
By: Nicholas Fortuna, November 28, 2023 The Supreme Court issued an ethics code on November 13 to stem criticism after a series of revelations about expensive gifts, luxury travel, payment of private school tuition, and a real property transaction benefiting some of the Justices. The code does not specify how the rules will be enforced or by whom. For years there has been a push to impose an ethical code on Supreme Court Justices. It came to a head in April, when ProPublica, an independent, non-profit newsroom that…
By: Megan J. Muoio, March 6, 2017 The Supreme Court announced last week that it will hear the matter of Hamer v. Neighborhood Housing Services of Chicago during its October 2017 session. The case comes to the Supreme Court on appeal from the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals which, plaintiff has argued, issued a decision contrary to the Supreme Court’s precedents when it dismissed her appeal despite an extension of time granted by U.S. District Court Judge Ruben Castillo. Plaintiff Charmaine Hamer was formerly an intake specialist for Neighborhood…
Paula Lopez, February 10, 2017. The Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA) protects employees, age 40 and older, against age discrimination. The Third Circuit, in Karlo v. Pittsburgh Glass Works, 129 Fair Empl.Prac.Cas (BNA) 1461, split from the Second, Sixth and Eight Circuits by holding that employees over the age of 40 can make out a disparate impact claim under the ADEA by showing that an employer’s actions disproportionately impacted a subgroup of employees over 40, within a larger group of employees over 40 years of age, but younger…
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…
By: Megan J. Muoio, October 19, 2015 On September 19, 2015, three trade groups representing the home care industry filed an emergency application with the Supreme Court, seeking a stay of rules implemented by the Department of Labor (DOL). Those rules require home care workers who are employees of a business or outside provider to be paid minimum wages and overtime pay. Those employees, as well as home care providers hired directly by the person being served or someone on their behalf, had long been exempt from minimum…
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…