New England Biz Law Update

The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has declined to abandon the longstanding McDonnell Douglas framework used to evaluate many employment discrimination claims, even as two judges on the panel openly questioned whether the test remains sound.

The National Labor Relations Board has ruled that a manager did not violate federal labor law when she told an employee from a unionized store that union workers might no longer be able to pick up shifts at nonunion locations.

Two new opinion letters draw a line between ordinary commuting and travel that becomes part of the employee’s workday.

Amazon is facing a lawsuit from a former manager who says the company approved his intermittent leave to care for his ill wife but failed to apply that leave correctly to his attendance record.

The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has formally proposed eliminating the annual EEO-1 report and several related demographic reporting requirements.

The D.C. U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has struck down an NLRB rule requiring certain successor employers to recognize and bargain with an existing union for up to one year, even when the union may no longer have the support of most employees.

The 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has revived a former Walmart employee’s hostile work environment claim, concluding that a lower court applied an overly restrictive standard when evaluating the alleged harassment.

A restaurant group has agreed to pay $2 million and implement significant workplace reforms to resolve a sexual harassment lawsuit brought by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has filed a Title VII lawsuit against The New York Times, alleging that the newspaper discriminated against a white male employee by denying him a promotion because of his race and sex.

The Trump administration continues to advance its effort to scale back the use of disparate-impact liability, with additional federal agencies proposing or adopting changes to regulations governing recipients of federal funding.