Employers, has this ever happened to you?

A guy (we'll call him "Ryan") comes to work for you through a temporary agency. The agency issues the paychecks and generally acts as Ryan's "HR" representative. Your company pays the agency but does not directly pay Ryan.

But when Ryan comes to work, he is supervised by Michael, who is one of your employees. Michael takes Ryan under his ...

Can an outside attorney defending an employer in a lawsuit under the Fair Labor Standards Act be liable for retaliation against the plaintiff-employee based on litigation tactics? One court answered that question "yes" last week.

Are these judges crazy? You decide.

In Arias v. Raimondo, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit reversed dismissal of ...

DEAR READERS: Before you accuse me of legal malpractice, take a look at tomorrow's date.  

Habit 1: Discriminate, retaliate, harass -- have a ball! There's a new sheriff in town, with a more employer-friendly, compliance-assistance-oriented U.S. Department of Labor (we think) and the nullification of burdensome regulations like the gone-and-not-lamented Fair Pay and Safe ...

This should have been an open-and-shut case. For the employer, that is, not the employee.

Lufkin Industries, Inc., had an employee, William Fisher, who was a 55-year-old African-American. One day, Mr. Fisher got into a verbal tiff with his 31-year-old white supervisor, and the supervisor called him "Boy." Mr. Fisher was offended and complained to the company's vice president of Human ...

I spent some time yesterday at the new Small Business Resource Center, which went live this week on the website of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. I think it's great.

Small businesses, which may be just below or at the cusp of coverage by federal anti-discrimination laws, are often confused about (1) whether they are covered, and (2) if so, what they need to do.

The EEOC ...

Employers, imagine that a retaliation charge has been filed against your company. What can you do to make the EEOC investigator love you?

Late last week, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission issued its final Enforcement Guidance on Retaliation and Related Issues, accompanied by a Q&A, and a Small Business Fact Sheet.

I had three fairly detailed blog posts on the ...

These will be really quick takes, since there are so many of them, on the proposed Enforcement Guidance on National Origin Discrimination issued this week by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. (The actual document is 57 pages long, not counting the table of contents.)

I'll try to focus on the less obvious/more interesting points.

Take No. 1: "National ...

This is the final installment of my analysis of the EEOC's recently issued proposed Enforcement Guidance on Retaliation and Related Issues. Here are Part One ("You gotta be protected!") and Part Two ("Was your employment action 'adverse'?").

For an employee to have a valid retaliation claim, it's not enough that she engaged in legally protected activity or that the employer took ...

What's a "materially adverse employment action"? This is the second part in what should be a three-part series (it's possible that we'll need four) on the proposed Enforcement Guidance on Retaliation and Related Issues recently published by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

To recap from last week, a plaintiff in a retaliation case has to prove three things:

1. She ...

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission issued last week a proposed Enforcement Guidance on Retaliation and Related Issues that would update guidance issued in 1998. If you're an in-house attorney or a Human Resources professional, I recommend that you read the whole thing. But to keep things digestible on this blog, I'm going to do a series of posts (three in all, I think, but I ...