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The Supreme Court of Iowa recently vacated a jury award of nearly 1.4 million dollars, an award that could have otherwise been tripled, finding that the plaintiff failed to properly prove her claims for either sex-based wage discrimination or retaliation. The lawsuit alleged sex discrimination in wages and went to a jury despite the defendant’s…
Read MoreThe case is Kluge v. Brownsburg Community School Co. The plaintiff is an evangelical Christian high school orchestra teacher in Indiana who lost his job for refusing to use a transgender student’s preferred pronoun. Kluge objected for religious reasons. According to court pleadings, initially, he worked out an agreement with the school to simply refer…
Read MoreAn IRS employee brought a national origin discrimination lawsuit after being fired for poor performance. The employee’s discharge was preceded by a disciplinary notice that documented over 100 mistakes she had made on the job. Undaunted by the overwhelming documented evidence of her failed performance, the plaintiff blamed management for its “cultural bias” against her…
Read MoreSome lawsuits are so outlandish they make headlines … for all the wrong reasons. One such silly case was brought as a class action against Amazon by employees in California. The plaintiffs, all 40 and older, alleged Amazon violated the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA) by imposing productivity quotas on all employees. The complaint…
Read MoreAs of January 1, 2020, all single occupancy-one person restrooms in a “place of public accommodation or public building” need to be identified as all-gender accessible and designated for use by no more than one person at a time or by a family unit. Simply stated, this means that the commonly used signage representing that…
Read MoreEmployers always seem to find themselves as the unwitting recipient/victim of the actions of others-sometimes other companies, sometimes the Government, but in almost all cases, some of their employees. Whether it is the Federal or State Government, the Me Too Movement or in this case, Generation Z and Millennials, Employers are always going to be…
Read MoreIn recent years, a number of Federal Appellate Courts have issued opinions finding that the single use of a racial slur would be sufficient to constitute a hostile and offensive working environment based on race. On August 21, 2019, the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals reached the opposite conclusion in concluding that the single alleged…
Read MoreThe first thing to check is: Was the Charge of Discrimination filed “timely”? A Charge of Discrimination must be filed within 300 days after the alleged discriminatory actions, or one year for a fair housing case. Employers accused of discrimination are required to preserve any records pertinent to the Charge. Additionally, employers are prohibited from…
Read MoreOn April 11, 2019, the Illinois state Senate passed Senate Bill 1829, also known as the Workplace Transparency Act. If passed by the Illinois House of Representatives and if signed by the Governor, this Act would impose new requirements and limitations with respect to harassment and discrimination claims on Illinois employers. As of May 10,…
Read MoreRecently, the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh (7th) Circuit (applicable to the State of Illinois, Indiana and Wisconsin) issued a far-reaching decision on the basis of an 8 to 4 decision (all twelve justices of the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals Hearing and Ruling on the case) establishing that job applicants may…
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