Lobbying Affiliate: MML&K Government Solutions
{ Banner Image }

Employment Law Blog

When It Comes To Employment Issues, Choose A Firm That Thinks Outside the Cubicle.

Contact Us

250 Character(s) Remaining
Type the following characters: tango, foxtrot, tango, hotel

* Indicates a required field.

Categories

McBrayer Blogs

Showing 59 posts from 2015.

Every step you take…can your employer be watching you?

Posted In Uncategorized

It sounds like something out of an Orwell novel: an employer demands an employee provide electronic notice of her whereabouts at all times, on and off the clock. The employee must now face a choice – protect her privacy outside of work, or lose her job. This is, however, a true story, and one without a happy ending for the employee. More >

What Employers Need to Know about Religious Discrimination after EEOC v. Abercrombie & Fitch

It’s rather fitting that the Supreme Court’s decision in EEOC v. Abercrombie & Fitch Stores turns on the idea of one’s belief; it is, after all, a decision about religious discrimination under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The belief at issue, however, is not the belief of the claimant of religious discrimination, but rather the belief of the employer. More >

Morbid Obesity is Not a Disability in Kentucky – For Now

There’s no question that obesity is a national health crisis, with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimating that more than a third of adults in the U.S. are obese. In 2013, the American Medical Association pronounced that it now finds obesity to be a disease, adding more fuel to the fire that suggests individuals afflicted with this disease could be considered “disabled” under the Americans with Disabilities Act (“ADA”). With regard to state law, however, the Kentucky Supreme Court closed the door – at least, for the time being - on disability claims with regard to obesity in the case of Pennington v. Wagner’s Pharmacy, Inc.[1] More >

How Serious is “Serious” under the FMLA?

The Family and Medical Leave Act (“FMLA”) provides protections for eligible employees who must take time off of work to deal with serious medical conditions. These protections, codified at 29 U.S.C. § 2612(a)(1), allow employees time away from work and prevent employers from taking adverse employment actions against the employee as a result of serious medical conditions. At issue, however, is the definition of “serious” – just how serious must a medical condition be to warrant FMLA protection? In the case of Dalton v. ManorCare, the Eight Circuit added yet another to a list of items that aren’t serious enough to trigger the protections of the statute. More >

It Takes Two (Racial Slurs to Support a Claim of Harassment, That Is)

Before we begin the analysis of the recent Fourth Circuit opinion in Boyer-Liberto v. Fontainebleau, let’s take a moment to clear something up: When asking how many times an employee may permissibly hurl a racial slur at another employee, can we all agree that the answer is none? Employers, we beseech you – do not, under any circumstances, allow your employees to berate any other employees with racial slurs. It may not necessarily rise to actionable levels under Title VII, but it is just atrocious and unacceptable behavior (and, as the court in this case noted, it CAN rise to actionable levels under Title VII). More >

Complaining to the Boss? The Second Circuit Says That's Protected

In 2011, the U.S. Supreme Court held in Kasten v. Saint-Gobain Performance Plastics Corporation that oral complaints are protected by anti-relation provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act (“FLSA”), but it did not address a vital question: must those complaints be “filed” with a government agency to receive protection against retaliation, or will simple oral complaints to an employer trigger such provisions?[1] The Second Circuit recently moved to fill that gap, ruling in Greathouse v. JHS Security, Inc. that merely “filing” an oral complaint with an employer is enough to trigger anti-retaliation provisions of the FLSA[2]. More >

For Equal Pay Act Comparison, “Equal” Can Mean “Greater Than”

The Equal Pay Act of 1963 (“EPA”) bars employers from discriminating in the payment of wages between employees on the basis of their gender. The employees of different genders must be performing equal work in jobs which require “equal skill, effort, and responsibility, and which are performed under similar working conditions.”[1] In an odd set of facts, the Tenth Circuit case of Riser v. QEP Energy hinged on an unusual definition of “equal.”[2] More >

Facebook is Not a Picket Line

The National Labor Relations Act protects the rights of employees to connect and address conditions at work, and recent decisions have held that this protection extends to certain work-related conversations on social media.[1] However, it has yet to be determined exactly how far this protection will reach. More >

A Title VII Transition?: Protections for Transgender Persons in the Workplace

Three years ago, the EEOC issued an opinion which held, for the first time, that discrimination against transgender persons based on gender identity is impermissible sex discrimination under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. See Macy v. Holder (Apr. 20, 2012). Last month, the EEOC revisited discrimination against transgender persons and released a decision that sheds some light on how the practical applications of this finding may affect employers, holding that certain bathroom restrictions for a transgender employee constituted discrimination. See Lusardi v. McHugh (Apr. 1, 2015). More >

Local Court Ruling Takes the Hands off of Hands On: Tensions between Fairness Ordinances and Religious Freedom Restoration Acts

Posted In Uncategorized

Businesses should keep a close eye on a case that continues to develop in Lexington, Kentucky, as it highlights the current tensions between emerging, evolving antidiscrimination paradigms and rights of free expression and freedom of religion as they exist under both federal and state laws. More >

Lexington, KYLouisville, KYFrankfort, KYFrankfort, KY: MML&K Government Solutions