A federal court judge has ordered a town that retained an attorney to investigate an employee’s hostile work environment complaints to respond to discovery requests about the investigation. Plaintiff Jennifer Berry Brown brought claims under Title VII and the Family ...
Read More »Unlawful retaliation in the workplace
Anti-retaliation laws safeguard basic rights afforded to workers. They ensure that workers can complain in good faith about violations of their rights to the government or their employers without fear that they will be disciplined or fired. State law may ...
Read More »Lawyers offer businesses advice on planning for succession
Business owners may be so busy running their companies that they don’t stop to consider what the future might hold if they weren’t there. Owners, however, can exercise control over what that picture will look like — as they contemplate ...
Read More »Status of the new Phase I environmental site assessment standard
The American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM) recently updated its standard for conducting Phase I Environmental Site Assessments (Phase I). This ASTM standard specifies what constitutes “good commercial and customary practice for conducting an environmental site assessment of a ...
Read More »EEOC adds nonbinary gender option
Individuals making complaints to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) can now select a nonbinary “X” gender marker during voluntary self-identification questions. Making the announcement on Transgender Day of Visibility, the EEOC indicated it will allow employees filing discrimination claims ...
Read More »As COVID-19 persists, so do disputes about vaccinations
Here are seven key takeaways from a recent Equal Employment Opportunity Commission webinar about vaccinations. Stay vigilant when it comes to vaccination disputes 30 percent of all COVID-19-related EEOC charges filed by employees since April 2020 involved a vaccine dispute, ...
Read More »OSHA introduces program to combat workplace heat hazards
Federal officials are embarking on a new endeavor to protect workers from illness and injury from heat exposure after the Biden administration announced the move last year. The Occupational Safety and Health administration last week introduced its National Emphasis Program ...
Read More »Covid-related business losses are not ‘physical loss’
Where a West Virginia business closed two of its art studio locations because of the governor’s Covid-19 executive order, its claim for lost business income and other expenses was denied because there was no material destruction or harm to its ...
Read More »Are you discriminating against employees with caregiving responsibilities?
As the world enters year three of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (“EEOC”) has issued a warning to employers of yet another risk to their businesses: caregiver discrimination claims. It is no surprise that the pandemic has ...
Read More »Is your business ready for a cyberattack? Survey says just half are
As international tensions rise, the issue of cyberattacks — and by extension preventing such attacks — becomes critical. So much so, in fact, that 78.95% of small business respondents to a new national survey from Provident Bank said that media ...
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