All posts by Drew M. Capuder

Publisher of Drew Capuder's Employment Law Blog. Lawyer with more than 30 years of experience, focusing on employment law, commercial litigation, and mediation. Extensive trial and appellate experience in state and federal courts. Call Drew at 304-333-5261.
Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sex Discrimination, US Supreme Court

Farewell, Ruth Bader Ginsburg

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Courage.

While still a prac­tic­ing lawyer, Ruth Bad­er Gins­burg in 1973 argued to 9 men on the Unit­ed States Supreme Court in a his­tor­i­cal­ly sig­nif­i­cant case, Fron­tiero v. Richard­son, 411 U.S. 677 (1973).

Gins­burg asked the Supreme Court to rec­og­nize for the first time that the guar­an­tee of “equal pro­tec­tion of the laws” con­tained in the Fifth Amend­ment (rat­i­fied in 1791) pro­tect­ed women and men from dis­crim­i­na­tion based on sex. 

In talk­ing to the 9 men on the Supreme Court, Gins­burg stat­ed: I “urge[] a posi­tion forcibly stat­ed in 1837 by Sara Grimke, not­ed abo­li­tion­ist and advo­cate of equal rights for men and women. She spoke not ele­gant­ly, but with unmis­tak­able clar­i­ty. She said, ‘I ask no favor for my sex. All I ask of our brethren is that they take their feet off our necks.’ ” 

The Supreme Court ruled near­ly unan­i­mous­ly in her favor (8–1).

Farewell, Ruth Bad­er Ginsburg.

“And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest.”

(Shake­speare, Hamlet.)
Harless wrongful discharge, Seminars

Drew Capuder Will Be Speaking At Upcoming West Virginia Employment Lawyers Association Conference

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I look for­ward to speak­ing at the West Vir­ginia Employ­ment Lawyers Asso­ci­a­tion’s annu­al con­fer­ence on Octo­ber 12 and 13, 2018, at Hawk’s Nest State Park in Anst­ed, West Virginia.

I will be speak­ing and pre­sent­ing an arti­cle on the Har­less wrong­ful dis­charge doc­trine, which deals with ter­mi­na­tion of employ­ees where the employ­er’s moti­va­tion alleged­ly vio­lates a sub­stan­tial pub­lic policy.

I will also be pre­sent­ing an arti­cle and par­tic­i­pat­ing in a pan­el dis­cus­sion on social net­work­ing & elec­tron­ic dis­cov­ery issues.

Here is infor­ma­tion on the con­fer­ence, join­ing the WVELA, and attend­ing the conference.

Employment policies

Rex Tillerson’s First Speech at the State Department: Lessons for Employers

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Lessons for Employers

The U.S. State Depart­ment has about 70,000 employ­ees. Rex Tiller­son was con­firmed as Pres­i­dent Trump’s pick for Sec­re­tary of State, and yes­ter­day was his first day on the job.

So Tiller­son spoke yes­ter­day to hun­dreds of State Depart­ment employ­ees to intro­duce him­self and talk about their shared mission.

I was impressed by the speech, and I thought the speech could give a lot of guid­ance to man­age­ment about the mes­sage that com­pa­nies and gov­ern­ment agen­cies should com­mu­ni­cate to their employees.

Con­tin­ue read­ing Rex Tillerson’s First Speech at the State Depart­ment: Lessons for Employ­ers →
Americans with Disabilities Act, Disability discrimination, Drew Capuder, Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA), Seminars

Drew Capuder Will Be Speaking at Sterling Employment Law Seminar

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On March 29, 2017, I will be speak­ing and pre­sent­ing an arti­cle on “The Per­ilous Inter­sec­tion of FMLA and ADA,” at a sem­i­nar host­ed by Ster­ling Edu­ca­tion Ser­vices. The Sem­i­nar, “Employ­ment Law: Rights, Ben­e­fits, and Emerg­ing Issues,” will take place in Mor­gan­town, West Vir­ginia. If you would like to attend the sem­i­nar click here for more infor­ma­tion and a reg­is­tra­tion form.

Here is the agen­da for my speech and article:

  1. FMLA updates
  2. ADA updates and EEOC guidelines 
    1. Expan­sion of what can be con­sid­ered a “dis­abil­i­ty”
    2. What con­sti­tutes “rea­son­able accom­mo­da­tion” accord­ing to the EEOC
    3. Dis­crim­i­na­tion and violations
    4. Review and update writ­ten poli­cies and job descriptions
  3. Over­lap of FMLA and ADA: find­ing the right balance
Democracy, Literature

Favorite quotes about the law, part 1

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Maybe it’s the frus­trat­ed nov­el­ist in me, but I’ve been think­ing about lit­er­a­ture and law.

This arti­cle is the start of a series where, once in a while and for no par­tic­u­lar rea­son, I will focus on thought pro­vok­ing and even pro­found state­ments (by oth­ers) about the law. Some­times the quo­ta­tions will be from lit­er­a­ture, and some­times they will be from legal writ­ings, philo­soph­i­cal works, and from darn near any­thing else that makes us think about the nature of law and its rela­tion­ship to society.

So let’s begin …

Con­tin­ue read­ing Favorite quotes about the law, part 1 →
Age Discrimination, Constructive discharge, Hostile work environment, Result for Employee, Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964

Fifth Circuit applies hostile work environment to age claims

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Courts have some­times ques­tioned whether hos­tile work envi­ron­ment claims apply to all “fla­vors” of dis­crim­i­na­tion. Hos­tile work envi­ron­ment claims most fre­quent­ly arise in claims of sex dis­crim­i­na­tion  and race dis­crim­i­na­tion claims under Title VII of the Civ­il Rights Act of 1964, but age dis­crim­i­na­tion claims under fed­er­al law arise under a dif­fer­ent statute, the Age Dis­crim­i­na­tion in Employ­ment Act of 1967.

The Fifth Cir­cuit direct­ly held recent­ly that hos­tile work envi­ron­ment claims are encom­passed by age dis­crim­i­na­tion claims under the ADEA in Dedi­ol v. Best Chevro­let, Inc., — F.3d — (5th Cir. Sep­tem­ber 12, 2011).

Con­tin­ue read­ing Fifth Cir­cuit applies hos­tile work envi­ron­ment to age claims →
Evidence issues, Medical Industry Litigation, Result for Employee, Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, US Supreme Court, USERRA

US Supreme Court Rules for Employee on “Cat’s Paw” Theory

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The Unit­ed States Supreme Court recent­ly unan­i­mous­ly issued a major vic­to­ry for employ­ees under “USERRA”, the Uni­formed Ser­vices Employ­ment and Reem­ploy­ment Rights Act of 1994, 38 U.S.C. § 4301 et seq., on the “cat’s paw” the­o­ry in employ­ment dis­crim­i­na­tion claims. The deci­sion was in Staub v. Proc­tor Hos­pi­tal, — U.S. — (March 1, 2011) (opin­ion at Google Schol­ar). Jus­tice Scalia wrote the opin­ion for the unan­i­mous court. Jus­tice Ali­to wrote an opin­ion con­cur­ring in the judg­ment, which Jus­tice Thomas joined. Jus­tice Kagan did not par­tic­i­pate in the decision.

What is the “Cat’s Paw” Scenario?

Drew's kitty-cat, HannaSo, what the heck is the “cat’s paw” the­o­ry? Does it explain why my cat, pic­tured at the left, is star­ing so intent­ly at you?

First, to define “cat’s paw” in a non-legal con­text, the Webster’s Online dic­tio­nary defines a “cat’s paw” as: “A per­son used by anoth­er to gain an end.” The term aris­es out of a fable in which a a shrewd mon­key tricks a cat into pulling roast­ing chest­nuts out of a fire—the cat gets its paw burned, and the mon­key gets the chest­nuts and scam­pers away unhurt.

Con­tin­ue read­ing US Supreme Court Rules for Employ­ee on “Cat’s Paw” The­o­ry →
Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA), Labor Unions, Pending legislation, WV Legislation

Legislative Update: Pending bill would expand sick leave rights for West Virginia employees

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House Bill 2770, which was recent­ly intro­duced into the West Vir­ginia House of Del­e­gates, would cre­ate the “Flex­i­ble Leave Act” to allow employ­ees to take already earned paid leave, and to use that leave for paid time off for an ill­ness of the employ­ee or the employee’s “imme­di­ate fam­i­ly”. The bill does not give employ­ees any addi­tion­al paid leave—it only allows them to take their paid leave that they have already earned under their employ­ers’ poli­cies, and allows the flex­i­bil­i­ty (hence the name, “Flex­i­ble Leave Act”) to take leave that may have been intend­ed for anoth­er pur­pose, such as earned vaca­tion time, and apply it for the dif­fer­ent pur­pose of their own or an imme­di­ate fam­i­ly member’s illness.

On Jan­u­ary 24, 2011, Del­e­gates Caputo, Fra­gale, Hat­field, Mar­tin, and Moye intro­duced House Bill 2770, which is being referred to the Com­mit­tee on Ener­gy, Indus­try and Labor, Eco­nom­ic Devel­op­ment and Small Busi­ness then Finance. You can keep track of the progress of the bill by going to the Bill Sta­tus page and enter­ing 2770 in the “Enter Bill Num­ber” field. For infor­ma­tion on the bill’s spon­sors, or on any oth­er mem­bers of the Sen­ate, you can go to the House Mem­bers page and pick the mem­ber from a drop-down list. For those of you who are inter­est­ed in find­ing out more about the leg­isla­tive process, the Leg­is­la­ture has a “How a Bill Becomes Law” page.  The Leg­is­la­ture also has a very nice pho­to gallery of the Capi­tol Build­ing.

Con­tin­ue read­ing Leg­isla­tive Update: Pend­ing bill would expand sick leave rights for West Vir­ginia employ­ees →