Christopher P. Maugans, Author at Professional Liability Matters

April 23, 2018 Employment Practices Liability

The Equal Pay Act & Salary History

Show of hands: who’d like to receive less pay for performing the same functions as your colleagues? The Equal Pay Act seeks to combat this issue and permits wage disparity only in the most limited of circumstances. In a recent federal decision, the court addressed whether an employer’s computation of salary based on a strict formula violated the Act when it resulted in disparate payment of female and male employees.

In Rizo v. Yovino, the Ninth Circuit addressed whether an employer could rely on …

April 2, 2018 Employment Practices Liability

Telecommuting as a Reasonable Accommodation

It’s been said that the first step toward success is showing up. But is that always required in the workplace? More to the point, is physical presence an essential function of an employee’s job? Sometimes. In a recent decision, the Sixth Circuit addressed whether physical presence was an essential job function for an in-house legal counsel employee.

In the decision, found here, the employee – an in-house attorney – was denied a request to work from home for ten weeks while she was on …

March 19, 2018 Employment Practices Liability

Obesity and The ADA

Is obesity a disability? No. Well, can obesity lead to an ADA-defined disability? That’s where things get tricky. In Ronald Shell v. BNSF Railway Co., a federal court in Illinois addressed these questions and others when a prospective employer denied employment due to its belief that the would-be employee could develop a disability resulting from his obesity.

Mr. Shell applied to work as an equipment operator position that was deemed safety-sensitive because it involves using heavy equipment. Shell had years of experience working in …

November 28, 2017 Employment Practices Liability

Break Time is Over

Today’s employees demand flexibility. In turn, many employers are moving towards a “results orientation” business model and getting away from the standard 9-5 schedule. In other words, the employer cares less about when employees get the work done, and only cares that the work gets done effectively. Employment laws are only beginning to catch up to this shift in work hours. Take for example the recent decision where the Third Circuit confirmed that the FLSA requires employers to compensate employees for breaks of 20 minutes …

November 6, 2017 Employment Practices Liability

Performance Evaluations: A Lesson on Documentation

Cases turn on the evidence. In the case of an employment discrimination or retaliation claim, the key may lie in the employee file maintained by the employer. One common piece of documentation created and maintained by many employers is performance evaluations. In Walker v. Verizon, a federal district court in Pennsylvania ruled on a case illustrating how important documentation can be in defending these claims.

The common legal framework in an employment discrimination and/or retaliation lawsuit has three steps. A plaintiff must first establish a …

October 25, 2017 Employment Practices Liability

Bad Back? You’re Fired.

Employers rely upon employees to get the job done. Usually, the “job” requires the employee’s physical presence at work. But injuries and medical conditions throw a wrench in the works. Most employers are at least generally aware of the implications of various federal and state laws governing treatment of employees with medical conditions and injuries. Yet, there is plenty of gray area where employers may be subject to liability. Take for example the recent decision in Severson v. Heartland Woodcraft, Inc. where the Seventh …

September 26, 2017 Employment Practices Liability

Lactation = Medical Condition under Federal Law

There are several federal laws with protections for pregnant employees and those employees experiencing complications from birth. Depending on the circumstances, FMLA, ADA and/or the Pregnancy Discrimination Act (“PDA”) may be triggered. In Hicks v. Tuscaloosa, the Eleventh Circuit ruled on a case involving an employee’s post-pregnancy lactation and need to nurse her newborn.

Hicks worked for the Tuscaloosa Police Department, on the narcotics task force and “exceeded expectations” according to a performance review given prior to her medical leave. Once pregnant, she was …

September 12, 2017 Employment Practices Liability

FMLA Causation Standard Slides Down

Navigating the waters of employee leave is tricky business for employers. At the federal level, FMLA requires “covered” employers to provide employees with job-protected and unpaid leave for qualified medical and family reasons. The question of the appropriate causation standard that must be proven in an FMLA claim is not unanimous among the Circuit Courts. In Woods v. START Treatment & Recovery Centers, the Second Circuit put its stake in the ground.

FMLA claims mainly come in two varieties: interference and retaliation. Generally speaking, …

August 14, 2017 Employment Practices Liability

High Times: Accommodating Marijuana Use at Work

Marijuana laws are evolving in the US. Marijuana is a Schedule 1 drug under the Controlled Substances Act, and has no accepted medical use under federal law. However, 29 states and Washington, D.C. have passed laws that decriminalized medical or recreational marijuana use. Nonetheless, many employers have longstanding zero tolerance drug use policies. The question remains, how should employers reconcile their internal policies with the laws requiring employers to accommodate employees with certain medical conditions? The answer is hazy.

The Massachusetts’ Supreme Court recently became …

August 3, 2017 Employment Practices Liability

Loser Pays: Risks of Civil Rights Claims

Federal civil rights actions are somewhat unique in that they allow the prevailing party to be granted “reasonable attorney’s fees.” An employer on the wrong side of a decision or verdict could leave it paying (a) damages; (b) its attorney’s fees and (c) its adversary’s attorney’s fees. But what are “reasonable” attorney fees? In Sommerfield v. City of Chicago, the Seventh Circuit shed some light on this important question.

In Sommerfield, a Jewish police officer with German heritage that worked for the Chicago …