With both Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock the likely winners of the U.S. Senate races in Georgia, a result that seemed unlikely just two months ago, Congress is suddenly back to being a major player in the next year or two.
Over the last several years, the amount of legislation coming out of
There’s an old(?) Bonnie Raitt song that my parents used to listen to when I was in college called “Let’s Give Them Something to Talk About”. It’s about a crush, but the intro could be just as applicable to a new court decision. The lyrics start: “People are talkin’, talkin’ ’bout people, I hear
Labor Day has come and gone. Summer is over. Can we all stop listening to Despacito now. (Please?)
But it’s time to look at a decision that came out during the dog days of summer that might have been overlooked. A recent federal district court case (Noffsinger v. SSN Niantic Operating Co. LLC, download
In an decision of first impression in Connecticut, a federal court on Friday ruled that a transgender discrimination claim based on a failure to hire can proceed under both Title VII and Connecticut’s counterpart, CFEPA.
While the groundbreaking decision in Fabian v. Hospital of Central Connecticut (download here) is sure to be the subject
I’ve talked many times before about the importance of a well-drafted disclaimer in your employee handbook (here and here, for example).
This is not a new thing and in Connecticut dates back to an important case back in 1995 .
Without such disclaimers, employers can be subject to a breach of contract claim
My colleague, Jarad Lucan, returns today with a primer on what it takes to establish a “prima facie” case of discrimination — the bare minimum to get the case to be considered by a court. Today, we focus on the third element — the “adverse employment action”. What is that, you ask? Read on.
If
Management-side lawyers like myself like to joke that a former employee can sometimes sue any employer for any reason at any time.
It’s not true, of course, but at times it feels like there is no limit to the creativity of lawyers filing claims against employers.
One such tactic was recently rejected by the federal
At 47 pages, U.S. District Court Judge Hall’s decision last week in Costello v. Home Depot USA (download here) denying an employer’s motion for summary judgment in an overtime case, isn’t exactly a light read.
She is, of course, not to blame. The
Reading the headline, I’m sure a few of you rolled your eyes. Dodd-Frank? Sarbanes-Oxley? Those statutes are seen as dull and tedious. But a new federal court decision in Connecticut should start to change that, and it has implications for employers nationwide.
The case is Kramer v. Trans-Lux, which you can download here. It addressed an employer’s motion to dismiss a claim of whistleblower retaliation under the Dodd-Frank Act. Ultimately, the court allowed the employee’s claim to proceed, noting that under the facts alleged, the employee has a viable claim.
What was the case about? According to the applicable complaint (which the court assumed as true for purposes of deciding the motion), the plaintiff was a Vice-President of Human Resources with responsibility for ensuring that the company’s benefit plans were in compliance with applicable law. He claimed that he expressed concern about the makeup and number of people on the pension plan committee and that he did not believe the company was adhering to its pension plan.
He claimed that he contacted the audit committee and, importantly, claimed that he sent a letter to the SEC regarding the company’s failure to submit a 2009 amendment to the board of directors. He then claimed that he was reprimanded and the subject of an investigation. Shortly thereafter, he was stripped of his responsibilities and later terminated.
Continue Reading A New Whistleblower Retaliation Statute Grows Up: Dodd-Frank is the new Sarbanes-Oxley.
United States District Court Judge Mark Kravitz passed away this week. He had been fighting valiantly against ALS (or Lou Gehrig’s Disease). But for those of us familiar with the disease, it has no cure and death is, for most, only a matter of time.
The Connecticut Law Tribune posted an article last night remembering