Category: Human Resources

The employee asked his manager about less physically demanding jobs. The manager offered to contact the risk department, then could not remember whether he ever did. TL;DR: The Fourth Circuit revived an employee’s ADA accommodation claim after his employer kept him on unpaid leave while filling customer service and sales

The employer offered him $400,000 to stay. He still claimed that workplace stress, microaggressions, and an abrasive executive amounted to race discrimination. TL;DR: A federal appeals court affirmed summary judgment for an employer, holding that an extra safety audit, continued safety monitoring, and workplace stress did not harm an identifiable

His doctors cleared him to return to work. The railroad kept him away from moving trains for five years. TL;DR: A federal appeals court upheld summary judgment for an employer that barred a railroad conductor from returning after a stroke because of the risk of a future seizure. Although the

The employee asked for help completing his work. Months later, the unfinished work became the reason for firing him. TL;DR: A federal appeals court rejected an employee’s intentional disability discrimination claim because the decisionmaker did not know about his disabilities. But it revived his failure-to-accommodate claim because HR and the

Browse the headlines about DEI-training backlash lawsuits and they usually go one way: a white employee gets offended and sues over it. This one, initiated by the EEOC, ain’t that at all. TL;DR: The EEOC has sued a St. Louis university, alleging it retaliated against a Black senior program manager

Workplace profanity was business as usual, right up until it accompanied a complaint about racism. TL;DR: An employee used repeated profanity while complaining to his supervisor about alleged race discrimination. The employer fired him eight days later, but a federal appeals court revived his Section 1981 retaliation claim because a

A judge joked about his female employee’s sexuality and kept a mug decorated with cartoon genitalia in his own courtroom. The same judge required her to burn a full day of sick leave every time she needed an hour off for a medical appointment. A federal appeals court still ruled

A supervisor approved the employee’s hairstyle at her interview, then sent her home for wearing it on day one. A federal appeals court says the case over what happened next isn’t finished, for either side. TL;DR: A federal appeals court vacated an $811,264 jury verdict for a former security contractor