Earlier this year, a federal appeals court in the Midwest issued a decision that allowed an employer to potentially escape liability for illegally depriving its employees of wages. The case involved a chain of restaurants called Gusano’s Pizza that allegedly used an illegal tip pooling scheme to deprive employees of…
Last month, a sex discrimination trial began in which Ellen Pao, a former junior partner at venture capital firm Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield & Byers, has alleged that Kleiner Perkins refused to promote her and forced her out because of her sex. The trial will include evidence of lurid sexism but,…
The United States is one of the few countries in the world that does not require employers to provide paid maternity leave to employees. A U.N. study of 185 countries found that the United States, Papua New Guinea, and Oman are the only countries that do not provide paid maternity…
This week the Maine Human Rights Commission (MHRC), in Augusta, unanimously found reasonable grounds to believe that Tambrands discriminated against an East Dixfield man, Allen Ackley, when it asked him questions during its hiring process that required him to reveal his age. Mr. Ackley reportedly applied for a plant technician…
A federal court in Puerto Rico, incredibly, held that no reasonable person could find that this statement showed that the employer fired her employee because of his age. As such, the Puerto Rico court, using a procedure called “summary judgment,” dismissed the case without letting a jury decide whether age…
In October last year we reported on a federal jury verdict that the Maine Employee Rights Group had obtained for our client Valerie Peasley. The jury found that Regis Corporation, which owns and operates the hair salon in Bangor where Ms. Peasley worked, unlawfully fired Ms. Peasley because she blew…
This week, the U.S. Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals held that a former employee of InterVarsity Christian Fellowship/USA (“IVCF”) could not sue it for sex discrimination because of the religious natures of IVCF’s business and her job. The former employee, Alyce Conlon, alleged that IVCF fired her because it did…
Exxon Mobil, the giant oil and gas corporation based in Texas, announced today that it has decided to change its equal employment opportunity (EEO) policies so that they now prohibit discrimination against lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) individuals. Exxon Mobil has been under pressure for years to amend its…
A group of former McDonald’s employees have sued the McDonald’s corporation and the franchises where they worked for race and sex discrimination. The employees who filed the lawsuit worked for McDonald’s restaurants in Boston and Clarksville, Virginia. Their allegations of discrimination include claims that the restaurants believed that their employees…
Last week, a federal court in Massachusetts held that a reasonable jury could find that the Salter School discriminated against former employee Victoria Domenichetti because she was pregnant and would need maternity leave. Ms. Domenichetti worked as the Externship Coordinator at the Salter School’s Fall River campus, which is a…