Atlanta Employment Attorneys Blog

Failure to Act Costs Tennessee Employer in Employee’s Sexual Harassment Case

March 3, 2016 | Parks, Chesin & Walbert

When an employee sues his employer in a sexual harassment case, there are several key pieces that go into that case. The court will look at the harasser’s conduct, as well as the employer’s response. For an employee to win against his employer, he must not only have been harassed, but also his employer’s response must have been improper. In a recent Tennessee case, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a $300,000 jury verdict in favor of an employee. In that case, it was not so much an improper action taken by the employer but an improper inaction that doomed its case.

The employee who sued, Jeffry Smith, worked at Norcross, Ga.-based Rock-Tenn Services, Inc.’s facility in Murfreesboro. Smith suffered multiple acts of harassment from a co-worker, Jim Leonard. Leonard slapped Smith on the rear one day, grabbed Smith’s rear very hard a few days later, and, some time later, came up behind Smith, grabbed his hips, and began basically engaging in a simulated humping session. The cumulative effect of Leonard’s conduct was so severe that Smith began suffering anxiety problems and had to take a leave of absence from work.

Appeals Court Applies Agricultural Exception to Case Involving Tennessee Worm Farmers

February 25, 2016 | Parks, Chesin & Walbert

Workers at a business that housed, raised, and sold worms for fishing bait lost another round in their case seeking compensation for unpaid overtime. The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals agreed with a Chattanooga-based federal district judge that the agriculture exception to the Fair Labor Standards Act’s overtime pay requirement applied to the worm farm. The worm farm, the Sixth Circuit decided, reasonably resembled an ordinary agricultural operation in almost every relevant way. The only major difference was the unfamiliar item that the farm was farming.

The business under scrutiny in this case was one run by Bruno Durant, a French immigrant who relocated to Georgia to grow and raise worms that he then sold for use as fishing bait. After a decade in Georgia, Durant moved his operation to rural Tennessee. The business consisted of importing baby worms from Europe before housing and feeding them on his property in Tennessee. Once the worms reached maturity and grew to a sufficient size to be fit for sale as bait (roughly double their size during their time on Durant’s farm), the farm sold them to retailers.

Atlanta Referral Agency, Stagehands Did Not Share Employer-Employee Relationship, 11th Circuit Rules

February 18, 2016 | Parks, Chesin & Walbert

In recent months, one of the emerging issues within employment law has centered on whether groups of workers are employees or independent contractors. Recent cases from Georgia have focused on whether exotic dancers are independent contractors or employees of the clubs where they dance, with the dancers achieving a favorable ruling in at least one instance. A group of freelance stagehands obtained a less successful outcome recently, with the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals deciding that they were not employees of a referral service.

The referral agency, Crew One Productions, Inc., provided workers for live events in Atlanta and surrounding areas. The stagehands referred by Crew One worked a variety of events, ranging from concerts and sporting events to plays, trade shows, and graduations. Crew One would contract with the event planner for a number of stagehands and a specific hourly rate of pay. Crew One, which maintained a database of stagehands willing to consider taking assignments from the agency, would contact members of its database and obtain a number of available workers matching the number the event planner needed.

Temporary Employees and FMLA Leave in Georgia

February 10, 2016 | Parks, Chesin & Walbert

An Alabama employee recently lost her Family Medical Leave Act case because the period for which she sought leave was after the last day of her temporary employment. The case, and the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals ruling in it, provides some helpful guidance to Georgia employers and employees when it comes to temporary employees and the FMLA. In ruling in favor of the employer, the court explained that employers can terminate temporary employees, thereby preventing them from taking FMLA leave, as long as the termination would have occurred just the same even in the absence of the employee’s leave request.

The employee in this case, Janet Scotnicki, was a nurse in the Coronary Care Unit (CCU) at the University of Alabama at Birmingham Hospital. Scotnicki had a condition called Autoimmune Cerebellar Ataxia. Symptoms of her condition include problems with balance and walking. In 2007, the nurse took a month of FMLA leave to seek medical treatment. When she and her supervisor discussed her return to work, her supervisor proposed two possible opportunities that were more sedentary than her CCU job. Scotnicki chose a job with the Interventional Cardiology office, even though the supervisor clearly indicated that this job was only temporary.

Sixth Circuit Ruling Raises Warning to Tennessee Employers When it Comes to Handing out Disparate Discipline

February 3, 2016 | Parks, Chesin & Walbert

As an employer, investigating employee misconduct and assessing proper punishment to each employee involved in breaking the rules is often complicated. It is very important to complete this task carefully and meticulously, though, especially if one the employees involved is a member of a protected class. In the case of one bank, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals decided that its decision to punish an African-American employee involved in a workplace fight more harshly than the white employee involved in the same fight may constitute racial discrimination. The unfavorable ruling for this employer highlights the potential pitfalls that can await employers that issue different punishments to employees involved in similar misdeeds, especially when the employees are of different races, genders, religions, and so on.

The case began with a verbal disagreement between Curtis Wheat and Brad Hatfield, two male co-workers at Fifth Third Bank. The disagreement escalated into an argument and eventually a physical fight. After the event, the bank sent Michelle Healy, an employee relations consultant, to interview both of the men. An angry Wheat told Healy that he would “take care of [the problem with Hatfield] myself” and “Monday is going to be a big day,” but he refused to elaborate further.

Georgia Transgender and Homosexual Workers and 2016 Employment Discrimination Cases in the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals

January 27, 2016 | Parks, Chesin & Walbert

Two Georgia women, who lost their jobs and subsequently launched Title VII sex discrimination cases against their former employers, ultimately took their cases all the way to the federal 11th Circuit Court of Appeals to defend their positions. These two cases, one of which was decided in mid-January and one of which remains pending, offer some important insight into the state of federal sex discrimination law and the changes that could soon take place.

The recently decided case involved an auto mechanic from Cobb County. When Credit Nation Auto Sales hired the mechanic, the mechanic identified publicly as a man named Louie Chavez. In 2009, Chavez began transitioning from male to female and began going by the name Jennifer Chavez. Chavez’s supervisor expressed unease about the mechanic’s decision, fearing that the mechanic would negatively affect business.

Lack of Proof that Employer Knew About Employee’s Disability Dooms ADA Case

January 20, 2016 | Parks, Chesin & Walbert

An Ohio man, who had a disability that affected his ability to stoop, bend, and twist, could not pursue an Americans With Disabilities Act case against the employer that terminated him. The law required the employee to show that the party that decided to terminate him knew about the disability. In this case, the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals, which covers not only Ohio but also Tennessee, decided that the employee lacked this necessary evidence establishing knowledge, and so his case was properly decided by the trial court in favor of the employer.

The employee, Michael Arthur, was a man who was born with spina bifida occulta, which is a birth defect that causes a malformed spinal cord. In 2002, three years after Arthur began working for American Showa, Inc., the man underwent surgery to fuse some of his spinal discs. Even after the surgery, the employee continued to have problems and took FMLA leave in 2003 due to his back.

Georgia Exotic Dancer Launches New FLSA Lawsuit Against Athens Club

January 13, 2016 | Parks, Chesin & Walbert

A woman who previously worked as an exotic dancer at an Athens club recently launched a class action lawsuit accusing her former employer of violating the Fair Labor Standards Act. According to the former employee, the club improperly withheld wages, overtime pay, and tips by improperly classifying her as an independent contractor when she was really an employee, the Athens Banner-Herald reported on its website, OnlineAthens.com. The Athens case is the latest in a string of lawsuits in which exotic dancers have challenged the legality of the way their clubs pay them.

In the recent case, Christie Burrell danced for three years at Toppers International Showbar, a well-known club in downtown Athens. During her entire employment, the club classified Burrell and all its other dancers as independent contractors, not employees. By doing so, the club avoided some of the requirements the FLSA imposes on employers regarding the payment of employees, specifically compliance with minimum wage and overtime rules. Burrell’s action claimed that, even though the club permitted, and sometimes demanded, dancers to work 40 hours or more per week, the dancers never received wages or overtime. Instead, the only compensation the dancers at the club received was their tips. To make matters worse, the club allegedly didn’t even pay the dancers all of the tips they earned, since the club engaged in “siphoning away” part of that money “to distribute to non-tip eligible employees.”

11th Circuit Rules that Replacing an Employee in His 40s with Another in His 40s Can Still Possibly Be Age Discrimination

January 6, 2016 | Parks, Chesin & Walbert

A Florida man should not have had his age discrimination case thrown out, even though both he and his replacement were both in their 40s. The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals decided to reverse a summary judgment in favor of the man’s employer, stating that an age discrimination case requires only a “substantially younger” replacement and that the employee’s allegation that age bias was the reason the employer replaced him with a man seven years his junior was enough to meet this “substantially younger” standard.

The employee, Robert Liebman, had worked for Metropolitan Life Insurance Company for 28 years when MetLife fired him in 2013. He started in 1985 as a sales representative and, by 2013, had risen to the position of Managing Director of the insurer’s West Palm Beach and Boca Raton offices. At the time of his termination, Liebman was 49 years old. Liebman sued MetLife for violating the Age Discrimination in Employment Act. The employer asked the trial court to grant summary judgment in its favor on the age discrimination claim, noting that the employee that it selected to replace Liebman was also over 40 years of age and, therefore, a member of the same protected class as Liebman. The trial court sided with the employer and issued a summary judgment order in favor of the insurer.

Georgia Job Applicant Allowed to Pursue Disparate-Impact Age Discrimination Claim

December 28, 2015 | Parks, Chesin & Walbert

A North Georgia man’s claim that R.J. Reynolds’ hiring practices for sales manager jobs violated the Age Discrimination in Employment Act got new life as a result of a recent decision by the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals. The court decided that both employees and job applicants alike can pursue age discrimination claims based upon the discriminatory results created by an employer’s policies.

The case involved Richard Villarreal’s pursuit of employment with R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. In November 2007, Villarreal submitted an application to Reynolds through an online job board, Careerbuilder, for a sales manager position. At that time, Villarreal was 49 years old. The employer never contacted the applicant about the job. In May 2010, he filed an ADEA violation claim with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.