Atlanta Employment Attorneys Blog

Georgia School District Settles Sex Discrimination Case with Former Superintendent

December 14, 2016 | Parks, Chesin & Walbert

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 how courts should handle cases like this one, in which there was a mixture of valid bases for the adverse employment action along with clear proof of gender-based bias.

Sixth Circuit Ruling Highlights When Title VII Does (and Doesn’t) Protect Partners in a Partnership

December 7, 2016 | Parks, Chesin & Walbert

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. In a recent Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals case, an ophthalmologist lost because the proof in her case showed that her standing as a partner was genuine and was much more than just nominal, meaning that she was not an employee under Title VII.

Eleventh Circuit: Proof of Employee’s Understanding of ‘Fluctuating Workweek’ Pay Dooms FLSA Claim

November 23, 2016 | Parks, Chesin & Walbert

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 using this method and remaining in compliance with the law is establishing a clear understanding about how the employee will be paid. In a recent 11th Circuit Court of Appeals case of note to Georgia employers and employees, the employee’s testimony in a deposition proved that the required level of “clear understanding” existed in this case, and the employer was not in violation of the law’s overtime pay rules.

Eleventh Circuit Addresses Title VII Discrimination Claim in Downsizing Case

November 17, 2016 | Parks, Chesin & Walbert

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 by the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals, a downsized employee brought but lost a sex discrimination case against her employer. She lost because she couldn’t prove an essential part of her case, which was that she was qualified to assume another open job with her employer after her employer eliminated her position.

Sixth Circuit Applies Federal ADEA Statute of Limitations to Employees’ State Law Discrimination Case

November 10, 2016 | Parks, Chesin & Walbert

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, we saw this on display. The employees brought state, but not federal, age discrimination claims. However, since the alleged discrimination related to the employees’ retirement plans, the federal statute of limitations applied to their case and yielded a decision that they brought their legal action too late.

The Options Tennessee Employers Have When They Detect Perceived FMLA Leave Misuse

November 2, 2016 | Parks, Chesin & Walbert

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 is important to understand what the laws says are your options. In a recent case from the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, that court concluded that an employer couldn’t be liable for FMLA retaliation when it forced into retirement an employee whom it deemed to have misused his FMLA leave. The employer won because it had ample proof that the employee had been dishonest, and dishonesty and abuse of FMLA leave were permissible non-discriminatory reasons for the employer’s actions. Continue reading ›

11th Circuit Allows Employees to Bring FLSA Collective Action and State Class Action in One Case

October 26, 2016 | Parks, Chesin & Walbert

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 the Fair Labor Standards Act does not prohibit employees from bringing a case that contains within it both a FLSA collective action and a state-law class action.

Sixth Circuit: Employee’s Request for Additional Time Off Was Not Reasonable, and Employer Did Not Violate ADA by Refusing

October 19, 2016 | Parks, Chesin & Walbert

A recent disability discrimination case from the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals is useful to Tennessee employees and employers in that it shines a light on some of the “variables” that can tip the scales of an employee’s Americans with Disabilities Act case in one direction or the other. In this case, since the employee had already been granted a long period of time off and was not certain of her recovery when she sought an extension of her leave, the appeals court relied on existing caselaw in ruling that the trial court correctly found the employer not in violation of the ADA when it denied the extension request and terminated the employee instead.

Full 11th Circuit Scraps Georgia Job Applicant’s Age Discrimination Case: What it Means for Georgia Employers and Employees

October 12, 2016 | Parks, Chesin & Walbert

A recent ruling by the full 11th Circuit Court of Appeals reversed a decision that an appellate panel had made earlier this year and also provided some clarity on which types of age discrimination claims job applicants in Georgia are and are not allowed to bring under the Age Discrimination in Employment Act. The new opinion states that only employees, not employment candidates, can bring ADEA lawsuits in which they allege that the employer’s policies had a disproportionately harmful impact on older workers.

Sixth Circuit Follows “Honest Belief” Rule to Reject Wal-Mart Associate’s Age Discrimination Case

October 5, 2016 | Parks, Chesin & Walbert

A Wal-Mart employee lost her attempt to bring an age discrimination case against her former employer after the company terminated her at age 62. The employee’s unsuccessful case is a reminder to employers and employees of the wide breadth of the “honest belief” rule, which says that, if an employer reasonably relied upon facts it had before it when it made its decision, it cannot be deemed to be using non-discriminatory reasons as mere pretexts for discrimination. The application of this rule to this employee’s case proved to be one integral piece in the failure of her age discrimination case at the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals.