Articles Posted in Employment Discrimination

As an employer, sometimes a key to defending successfully against a disability discrimination claim is having thorough proof that you engaged a disabled employee clearly and consistently throughout the entire process regarding accommodations as well as essential job functions. Experienced Georgia disability discrimination attorneys can help you determine what your rights and obligations are. In a recent case of a city worker in Florida, the employer won because the employee sought an accommodation allowing telecommuting, and the employer was able to establish that regular, full-time, and in-office work attendance was an essential function of the employee’s job.

The case involved a woman named Janet who worked as a purchasing agent for the City of Tallahassee. That job entailed interacting with outside vendors, some of whom would show up unannounced. Her job also included selecting and training vendors, which took place in the employer’s office site.

Three years into her employment, Janet’s doctors diagnosed her with fibromyalgia. Janet sought, and the city granted, numerous steps to accommodate her condition. She received a special parking space, along with an exemption from certain aspects of the employer’s dress code. Furthermore, the city allowed Janet to work a special schedule, which meant working four nine-hour days and one four-hour day.

In an important new ruling on the issue of discrimination against breastfeeding employees, the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a jury’s decision that a police department’s refusal to provide a breastfeeding officer with a satisfactory ballistic vest amounted to a violation of the Pregnancy Discrimination Act, and in the process, it upheld a $161,000 damages award for the employee. Discrimination against breastfeeding employees is an emerging and evolving area of the law, and, if you think you have an issue related to breastfeeding discrimination, you should promptly reach out to a knowledgeable Georgia pregnancy discrimination lawyer.

The plaintiff in the case, Stephanie, was a patrol officer who eventually rose to the position of police investigator. Early in 2012, while working within her department’s narcotics task force, she became pregnant. From August to November 2012, she took 12 weeks of FMLA leave at around the time of her baby’s birth.

Eight days after returning to work, the city reassigned her from narcotics to the patrol division. The city alleged that the change was a result of Stephanie’s failure to communicate with confidential informants; Stephanie asserted that it was a result of her new supervisor’s bias against her due to her use of FMLA leave.

A potentially significant case that began here in Georgia is working its way through the federal court system. The case involved an employee who was fired after she twice experienced certain pre-menopause menstruation-related incidents while at work. A ruling from the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals could clarify whether these types of discrimination cases require proof that the employer treated the plaintiff less favorably than other employees outside that gender group who had generally analogous health issues, or whether proof of an employer’s adverse action against an employee for an issue related to her menstruation necessarily amounts to direct discrimination based on sex. If you find yourself in a similar situation, an experienced Georgia sex discrimination attorney can help you assess your rights under the anti-discrimination laws.

The plaintiff in the case, Alicia, was a 911 dispatcher working for an institute that helped people with disabilities. Eventually, after several years on the job, the dispatcher faced a problem that most women will encounter:  menopause was closing in. For this dispatcher, her pre-menopausal condition meant that her cyclical menstrual flows became irregular and unpredictable, in terms of both timing and volume.

The dispatcher notified her employer and kept feminine hygiene products with her while at work, but infrequent major surprises still happened. The first time, in August 2015, she leaked through her clothes and onto an office chair. The employer imposed discipline against her and also issued an ominous warning:  another occurrence would result in termination. The dispatcher allegedly redoubled her efforts to prevent problems, but, eight months later, she had another accident, which soiled an area of office carpeting. The dispatcher cleaned the carpet herself, but the employer carried through on its previous warning and fired her.

Abraham Lincoln reputedly said that “he who represents himself has a fool for a client.” The central thrust of this statement is that cases in which a party represents herself almost always end poorly for that person. This is especially true for non-lawyers who represent themselves. The law, especially employment law, is full of specifics, details, and requirements that even an intelligent and knowledgeable non-lawyer couldn’t reasonably be expected to know. That’s why it is almost always the right move to retain experienced Georgia employment counsel to represent you in your discrimination case.

A cautionary example of this point was the case of Wen, a professor at the medical school of a major private university in Florida. Wen’s time at the med school did not go as she had planned. She started with a tenure-track position in 2007 but, by 2011, having been deemed by the faculty to be making insufficient progress toward tenure, switched to a research track. That didn’t help, so the faculty voted in October 2011 not to renew Wen, and her employment terminated in October 2012.

The professor sued the school, arguing that it was liable for racial discrimination and retaliation. Ultimately, she lost on all of her claims. In many ways, her case was beset by procedural problems, which offer a lesson about the problems that can befall a plaintiff who attempts to represent herself. (The docket in Wen’s case showed she initially had an attorney in the District Court, but, by the time that court ruled in 2015, she was self-represented.)

For employers, one of the challenges with which they must deal is creating and following a process for making new hire and promotion decisions. The need to appear impartial and fair may lead an employer to create a metric that is standardized and objective. The key, though, is that, once an employer creates such a system, it becomes important to follow that system or, if deviating from those results, to document a clear reason why. If your employer doesn’t do this, these facts may actually work to strengthen your Georgia employment discrimination case, according to a recent 11th Circuit Court of Appeals ruling.

In the case recently decided by the 11th Circuit, a white sheriff’s deputy was pursuing a promotion to sergeant within the Broward County, Florida Sheriff’s Office. In 2012, the deputy took the sergeant’s exam, a tool for assessing promotion candidates that included “a multiple-choice test, a structural interview, and an oral presentation.”

Although the department made 30 promotions, and the deputy finished 20th on the exam, he did not receive a promotion. He had the second-highest exam score among those not promoted. By contrast, the 47th- and 50th-highest scoring candidates did receive promotions to sergeant. Both of those candidates were African-American.

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As an employer, there are many human resources-related tasks with which you must concern yourself. Some of these might seem like less significant items, but even these “small” details can have great importance in certain situations. One example is maintaining updated, detailed, and complete job descriptions. While this might seem like a relatively minor thing, it was the key to success for one Ohio employer in a disability discrimination case one of its employees launched recently.

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In a Title VII discrimination case, there are several hurdles in front of a plaintiff. The law requires that the employee show that she suffered discrimination and that the legitimate, non-discriminatory reasons offered by the employer were really just pretexts for discrimination. In the case of one middle Tennessee professor, her employer was able to persuade the court that the professor’s case came up short in multiple areas required by the law.

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Late last summer, the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals issued a ruling in favor of an employer after an employment candidate accused the company of race discrimination by virtue of its enforcement of its employee grooming policies. This so-called “dreadlock decision” has led to many discussions and commentaries since its release, both about what “race” means as well as the degree of control employers should have over their employees’ appearance. For employers and employees in Georgia, it is useful to take note of exactly how far the law allows an employer to go in mandating an employee’s choice of hairstyle.

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One of the interesting byproducts of living in the 21st-century information age is the speed at which information transmits. In this age of smartphones, the world-wide web, and social media, news really does travel fast. Whether you are an LGBT person in the workforce or you’re an employer, chances are you either have read or will soon be reading about the April 4 Title VII decision issued by the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals sitting en banc. You’ll likely see headlines trumpeting that the decision has “decided” the issue of Title VII and whether or not it bars sexual orientation discrimination. While that’s true in Indiana, Illinois, and Wisconsin, if you’re working or doing business in Georgia, the reality is a bit different.

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