Last week I heard David Lopez, General Counsel of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, speak about EEOC litigation developments at the annual North Carolina/South Carolina Labor and Employment Law conference.

The EEOC has been litigating like a house afire, so I knew you would want to hear what he had to say. Mr. Lopez - who reads this blog and likes it! - gave me permission to ...

"Drag a $100 bill through a trailer park, you never know what you'll find."

"Every word she writes is a lie, including 'and' and 'the.'"

"Did NOT!"

Can a denial open you up for a defamation suit? Apparently.

This is essentially what recently happened to Bill Cosby. Three women said that Mr. Cosby sexually abused them many years ago, before many of you were born. The incidents ...

Last September, I posted that the EEOC had filed its first two lawsuits against private employers alleging discrimination based on gender identity.

The EEOC announced this week that one of the lawsuits -- against Lakeland Eye Clinic of Florida -- has settled. The Clinic has agreed to make two payments of $75,000 to Brandi Branson, who had been the Clinic's Director of Hearing Services ...

Bloomberg BNA reports this afternoon that the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission filed two transgender discrimination lawsuits yesterday, the agency's first ever against private-sector employers. One is against a Michigan funeral home, and the other is against a medical clinic in Lakeland, Florida. Both cases appear to involve straightforward discrimination ...

You be the judge of these real-life employment disputes! (I've changed the names to make it harder for you to Google the answers right away, but the answers with links are at the end of the post.)

1. Susan and her husband, who are white, are cleaning out their attic one weekend. They come across some quaint old clothes and sepia-tinted pictures, and among the treasures Susan finds an old ...

Public employers often mistakenly believe that they have the same drug testing rights as employers in the private sector. As a recent decision from a federal court in Florida shows, it ain’t necessarily so.

Karen Voss was offered a newly created position of Solid Waste Coordinator with the City of Key West. The job entailed marketing and planning related to the city’s recycling ...

ROBIN'S NOTE: I am happy to have Tommy Eden back again for a guest post. Tommy is from Constangy’s offices in Opelika, Alabama, and West Point, Georgia. He drafts DOT and state-specific drug testing policies for clients nationwide, and he serves on the Board of the Substance Abuse Program Administrators Association.

Employers often want to know how much “smoke” there has to ...

Many, many years ago, as an associate, I got to help defend the worst harassment investigation of my career. The entire investigation went essentially like this: MANAGER: "Lucy [not her real name] says you sexually harassed her. Is that true?" ACCUSED: "I ain't crazy." *End of investigation.* Oh. Except that the manager documented it, too. *Head slap* .

 In this manager's defense, he was ...

By David Phippen, Fairfax Office

UPDATE: David's client bulletin analyzing the D.C. Circuit's Noel Canning decision is available here.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit struck down today the "recess appointments" of Sharon Block and Richard Griffin to the National Labor Relations Board. Without Members Block and Griffin, most of the Board decisions ...

Happy new year, everybody! Although I've been on vacation, the news never sleeps, and the Mayans were wrong. Accordingly, I have a few items to catch you up on.

"Ha-ha! We were just kidding!"

UPDATE: Thanks to reader John Perkins, SPHR, for the 2013 Mayan Calendar. Most educational!

"Near occasion of sin" is a legitimate ground for termination, Iowa court says. You've probably already ...