On October 22, 2019, a Tennessee federal district court dismissed a disability discrimination lawsuit filed by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (“EEOC”) under the Americans with Disabilities Act (“ADA”) against West Meade Place LLP (“WMP”), a skilled nursing facility, after finding on summary judgment that the EEOC failed to establish that former WMP employee Carma Kean was disabled, as that term is defined under the ADA. In EEOC v. West Meade Place LLP,…

Our colleague Brent Owen at the FrESH Law Blog (which covers perspectives on Environmental, Safety, and Health law) recently provided an update to his prior post addressing the US Supreme Court’s then-pending decision in Kisor v. Wilkie.  In that case, decided in late June 2019, the Court addressed the Auer standard of deference that is applied by courts to administrative agencies’ interpretations of their regulations.  Although Kisor did not involve an employment dispute per se, the decision…

On October 1, 2019, a U.S. District Court Judge for the District of Massachusetts ruled in favor of Harvard University in a closely watched case examining whether the college’s admissions process, which takes candidates’ race and economic circumstances into account, results in race-based animus against Asian-Americans. The suit, filed by an anti-affirmative action advocacy group, Students for Fair Admissions (SFA), accused Harvard of overemphasizing race in the admissions process, or “race balancing,” resulting in a…

Our colleagues Colter Paulson and Justin DiCharia at the Sixth Circuit Appellate Blog (which covers, as you may have guessed, developments in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit) authored the post below discussing the Sixth Circuit’s recent decision in a case in which the Court was tasked with deciding whether an employer may enter into agreements with its employees to shorten the time period for filing of employment discrimination claims under Title…

Between August 29 and September 10, the National Labor Relations Board (“NLRB” or “Board”) issued four decisions that resolve important issues that have been the subject of long-running disputes.  It also issued an invitation to submit briefs in a case that provides an opportunity for the current Board majority members to revise the standard for when employee conduct loses protection under the National Labor Relations Act. Misclassification of Employees As Contractors Alone Does Not Violate…

On August 9, 2019, Illinois Governor JB Pritzker signed into law the Illinois Workplace Transparency Act (“WTA”), imposing new requirements and modifying existing laws in ways that will impact nearly all Illinois employers – and may be a signal of things to come in other US states.  The WTA aims to address concerns raised through the #MeToo movement regarding the frequency of sexual harassment occurrences and concealment of claims of such unlawful conduct.  But the…

If you’ve been following our blog, you already know that the topic of employer-mandated arbitration agreements has been a hot issue in recent years for government agencies and in the state and federal courts.  Most notably, in May of last year, the United States Supreme Court issued its highly-anticipated decision in Epic Systems v. Lewis, in which it confirmed that employers may require employees to enter into mandatory arbitration agreements as a condition of…