A new lawsuit filed last Thursday in Connecticut state court by an employer alleges that the employer’s due process rights are being violated by “inherently conflicted and irreparably unfair proceedings” at the Commission on Human Rights and Opportunities (CHRO) — the state agency responsible for investigating and enforcing the state’s anti-discrimination laws.
In the lawsuit,
Last week, Attorney Robin Shea of Employment & Labor Insider proposed 10 rules of etiquette that “will save you from a pregnancy discrimination suit”. Rule No. 1? Pregnancy is always good news. Always. Always. Always.
If you haven’t read it, I’ll wait.
There are lots of rules regarding pregnancy that may come into play
At a Sentencing Commssion hearing last week, former state lawmaker Ernie Newton — who was convicted in 2006 on corruption charges — urged commission members to address hiring discrimination against ex-felons, reports CT News Junkie. There is no indication yet that they will do so, but his comments raised some eyebrows in the press.
Newton’s
It’s been a crazy week here for reasons I hope to share in a future post.
But in the meantime, the world of employment law still continues. Here are some items worth reading that I had hoped to talk about further. This brief recap will have to do for now.
A case out of the Second Circuit Court of Appeals (of which, Connecticut is part of) addresses an interesting question:
When a jury finds that sexual harassment has been perpetuated by a single employee, is injunctive (non-monetary) relief required to be issued by the District Court?
The EEOC argued yes and argued that remedies such as preventing the harassing employee from returning to the workplace were appropriate.
The Second Circuit agreed in part, saying that ordinarily a termination of a lone harasser should be enough. But the court said that given the egrigious facts of this particular case, something more should’ve been done to protect the female employees from potential future harassment.
The case, EEOC v. KarenKim, Inc. (d/b/a Paul’s Big M Grocery), can be downloaded here.
There’s a lot of facts to the case, but this summary, by the Outten & Golden Employment Law Blog, captures some of the salient points:
KarenKim is a grocery store whose employees largely consist of teenage female employees. The company is owned and managed by Karen Connors. In 2001, she hired Allen Manwaring as the store manager. In 2006, Connors and Manwaring became romantically involved and had a son together.
At trial, a number of current and former employees testified about Manwaring’s sexual harassment of the female employees, which consisted of verbal and physical harassment. Some of his verbal comments included making comments of a sexual nature to employees and compliments about parts of their body. He told one employee that if he was her boyfriend, he would never “let her out of his sheets” and that “if he was 10 years younger, he would be on top of her.” He also physically harassed the women by touching and massaging them in inappropriate ways and on a daily basis. He would brush up against them to deliberately touch their breasts, put his crotch against their buttocks, breath on their necks, hug them, and squeeze their hips.
Oy.Continue Reading What Remedy Is Appropriate When a Jury Concludes Sexual Harassment Occurred?
In the five plus years of this blog, it’s rare to find topics that I haven’t covered, at least minimally.
One such topic, though, is the notion of “mitigation of damages”. It is a concept found in lots of cases, but it has particular importance in employment discrimination cases.
An employee who claims he
Finally, today is Election Day.
And while the pundits tonight will all look forward to what the next four years might bring, it’s worth taking a quick peek back at Obama’s (first?) four years with a review of some of the posts from 2008-9.
Before his term, there were predictions that he would be good
The American Bar Association’s Labor & Employment Law Annual Conference is going on right now in Atlanta, Georgia. As I’ve recapped on this blog before (here, for example), there are some terrific programs and educational opportunities there.
I wasn’t able to make it down this year, but due to the wonders of technology,
As the week draws to a close, it’s time for another installment of Quick Hits, where I highlight a few blog posts worth a read.
A cab driver, who claims he suffers from cynophobia (a fear of dogs) and who refused to pick up a blind customer with a service dog, has filed a federal lawsuit against his employer for discrimination on account of his disability after he was fired.
The suit of Ahmad v. Yellow Cab Co., which was