Riddle me this:

Employee sues her boss for sexual harassment. Case settles for $127,500, and she has to agree to confidentiality and non-disparagement.

About nine years later, boss becomes an internet pariah for allegedly poaching a beautiful and beloved lion in Zimbabwe. Somebody in the media finds out about the sexual harassment settlement (how'd they do that, if it was ...

For a guy who doesn't tweet, Jim Coleman - head of Constangy's Metro Washington D.C. Office and co-chair of our Wage and Hour Practice Group - has suddenly become an awfully big Twitter celeb.

(Or anyway, as big a Twitter celeb as employment lawyers ever become.)

It all started last weekend, when I got a tweet from Suzanne Lucas, the Evil HR Lady:

Screen Shot 2015-07-31 at 6.04.11 AM

 

As I told Suzanne, I really wasn't sure, so ...

Dear Americans with Disabilities Act,

How time flies -- you're already 25 years old! I have seen many lovely tributes to you this week, and a couple of my favorites are here and here. I hope you don't mind one more from me.

When President George H.W. Bush signed you into law in 1990, I had been practicing employment law for less than two years, so I feel like you and I grew up together.

I ...

It's been 40 years since Jimmy Hoffa disappeared. Yesterday's Detroit Free Press had a great article about the whole mysterious story, including the mobster suspects and all the leads that turned out to be dead ends. Hey, it's labor-related!!

Uh-oh. Lawyers who do document review may not be exempt from the overtime requirements of the Fair Labor Standards Act, according to a court decision issued yesterday.

Large law firms and legal services vendors often hire stables of contract lawyers to do document review in big cases. Sometimes, the lawyers who do the review are actually reading and analyzing the documents in light of ...

Here's a lesson: Don't call your employee an "old fart," especially if you think you may need to fire him someday.

And don't call his co-workers "old farts" right before you fire the co-workers.

And don't give your "old fart," who has only a first-level warning on his record, three or four "progressive" warnings on the day that you fire him.

And don't try to invoke "employment at ...

We went to the U.S. Supreme Court, and all I got was this lousy $45K?

(Better than a lousy t-shirt, I guess.)

Law360 reports that, now that the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled in favor of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in the high-profile religious discrimination and accommodation case, Abercrombie has agreed to pay Samantha Elauf $25,670.53 in damages and $18,983.03 ...

A good reminder for employers about maintaining cybersecurity comes from a recent Washington Post article ("This is why the government keeps getting hacked" by Jeffrey Neal) about the breach at the Office of Personnel Management. Sometimes the simplest things can cause huge problems . . .

The lock on the door is irrelevant if users of a system fail to close the door. For example, agencies ...

"I like it when the judge calls me 'honey' - that means he's going to grant my motion." -- Quote from real female attorney I know, circa 1990.

Does the court system discriminate against women lawyers? Could be!!!!

Anyway, that's what a couple of women litigators assume, based on their study showing that men were lead counsel in a sampling of federal cases in northern Illinois from ...

Are you still using "independent contractors"? Get out of here - you know they're really employees!

On Wednesday, I did a very short "breaking news" post on the new Interpretation issued by Wage and Hour Administrator David Weil on when workers are "employees" versus "independent contractors" under the Fair Labor Standards Act.

Here's more.

As employers probably ...

Robin Shea has 30 years' experience in employment litigation, including Title VII and the Age Discrimination in Employment Act, the Americans with Disabilities Act (including the Amendments Act). 
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