The government’s interest in protecting national security, including national security information, can be very wide-ranging. However, based upon a recent ruling issued by the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals, national security exceptions do not allow a government-run nuclear power plant to revoke a medical clearance in a way that constitutes…
A nurse was able to revive his Family and Medical Leave Act claim against his former employer after the employer failed to reinstate him from leave immediately after he informed the employer of his availability. Since reasonable jurors could disagree regarding whether the employer handled the reinstatement in a way…
A woman who felt harassed at her job by a male co-worker took a cell phone picture to document the harassment to which she was subjected. For that, the employer terminated not the male employee but the woman, alleging that she violated workplace policies regarding taking other employees’ pictures without…
A groundbreaking 11th Circuit Court of Appeals ruling, which revived a Georgia school superintendent’s sex discrimination case, has paved the way to a $400,000 settlement award for the former superintendent, the Thomasville Times-Enterprise reported. The settlement marks the end to litigation that allowed the 11th Circuit to weigh in on…
Title VII’s protections are intended to protect employees from impermissible discrimination. In furtherance of that goal, a person must in fact be an employee in order to pursue a Title VII violation case. Some partners in businesses may qualify, but only if they prove that they are only “nominal” partners.…
The Fair Labor Standards Act allows employers to use various different methods to pay employees while still remaining compliant with the law. One of these methods is the “fluctuating workweek method,” or paying a base weekly salary to an employee regardless of the hours the employee worked. The key to…
Layoffs. Downsizing. Reductions in force. These words and phrases can be painful for employees and employers alike. However, the issue of downsizing an employee can be especially tricky if that employee is also a member of a protected class, such as women or racial minorities. In a case recently decided…
The law can be full of twists and turns, with many nuances that may affect the resolution of an issue and, in the process, the ability of an employee to succeed in a discrimination case. In a recent Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals case involving several former employees at Chrysler,…
It is often a tricky situation for an employer. You’ve approved an employee’s taking a certain amount of time off under the Family and Medical Leave Act, only to discover soon thereafter that your employee wasn’t completely honest with you about his leave. When an employer encounters this issue, it…
A recent ruling by the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals is an important one for Georgia employers and employees to note, since it may affect some potential minimum wage and overtime cases. In the new decision, the 11th Circuit decided that it would join numerous other circuits in concluding that…