Yesterday, the United States Supreme Court issued its ruling in Vance v. Ball State University (No. 11-556), which considered who qualified as a supervisor for purposes of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The determination of this issue was critical because employer liability for unlawful harassment under…
The ADA Amendments Act of 2008 (“ADAAA”) amended the Americans with Disabilities Act to expand the definition of “disability,” which had been limited over the years by court decisions. In enacting the ADAAA, Congress specifically rejected United States Supreme Court interpretations of the meaning of the term “disability.” The result…
The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) has scheduled a meeting for May 8, 2013 at its main headquarters in Washington, D.C., to address whether employer wellness programs may implicate, among other things, the confidentiality and permissible inquiry provisions of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), the Genetic Nondiscrimination Act…
In Gail Kelly v. Howard I. Shapiro & Assocs. Consulting Engineers, P.C., et al., 12-3489-cv, April 26, 2013, the plaintiff filed claims under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the New York State Human Rights Law, alleging that an affair that one of her brothers had…
In 2005, the New York City Council amended the New York City Human Rights Law (“NYCHRL”) to make it clear that courts should construe New York City’s anti-discrimination protections more broadly than federal discrimination protections. Under the Local Civil Rights Restoration Act of 2005, the New York City Council alerted…
Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits sexual harassment in employment. In 1998, the United States Supreme Court held in Oncale v. Sundowner Offshore Servs., Inc. that sexual harassment also included same-sex harassment and violated Title VII. Recently, the United States Court of Appeals for the Second…
Last week, on March 4, 2013, the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit (which covers New York, Connecticut and Vermont), reaffirmed the importance for an employer to conduct a fact-specific analysis in considering requests for reasonable accommodation under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). In McMillan v.…
On December 17, 2012, the United States Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (“EEOC”) approved its Strategic Enforcement Plan for Fiscal Years 2013-2016 (“SEP”). The SEP establishes priorities and integrates all components of the EEOC’s enforcement. In so doing, the SEP adopted the following national priorities: 1- Eliminating Barriers in Recruitment and…
Following a two-week trial, a jury returned a verdict finding that the employer had subjected a class of female employees to a sexually hostile work environment. The jury awarded compensatory and punitive damages to the class of employees who had been sexually harassed. The court, however, declined to impose injunctive…
Despite that employers have become increasingly more aware of blatant employment discrimination in the workplace, pregnancy discrimination continues to thrive. The Huffington Post recently posted an article discussing several pregnancy discrimination cases recently filed by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (“EEOC”). It appears that pregnancy discrimination has become an…