title vii

Does Title VII Protect Gay & Transgender Employees? The Supreme Court May Soon Decide.

, and Posted on

As early as November 30, 2018, the U.S. Supreme Court will decide whether to hear three high profile employment cases that question whether Title VII’s ban on sex discrimination protects gay and transgender employees.  These cases have significant implications on the proper scope of Title VII and the rights of the LGBT community in the workplace.

Under Title VII, an employer has engaged in “‘impermissible consideration of … sex … in employment practices’ when ‘sex … was a motivating factor for any employment practice,’ irrespective of whether the employer was also motivated by ‘other factors’.”

READ MORE →

Let Them Eat Cake: Religious Accommodations, LGBTQ Rights and Other Workplace Implications of SCOTUS’ Masterpiece Cakeshop Decision

and Posted on

In a highly anticipated ruling, in Masterpiece Cakeshop, Ltd. v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission, U.S. Supreme Court ruled 7-2 in favor of a cake shop owner who refused to make a wedding cake for a same-sex couple because of his religious beliefs.  The case highlights the potentially conflicting intersection of religious freedoms and anti-discrimination laws; i.e. the right to hold sincere religious beliefs and the right to be treated equally and without discrimination based on one’s sexual orientation. READ MORE →

Get it on the Calendar: Employees’ Sabbath Work Claims Survive, but Tenth Circuit Rejects Broad “Complete” or “Total” Theories of Religious Accommodation

, and Posted on

The Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals recently reversed a decision by the U.S. District Court for the District of Utah granting summary judgment in favor of Kellogg USA in a case involving an alleged failure to accommodate employees’ religious beliefs.

The case, Tabura v. Kellogg USA, emerged after Richard Tabura and Guadalupe Diaz, both Seventh-day Adventists, were terminated for refusing to work on Saturdays, the Sabbath day in their religion.  The former employees filed suit in February 2014, claiming that Kellogg violated Title VII of the Civil Rights Act by failing to accommodate their religious beliefs. READ MORE →

Marrying Sex and Sexuality under Title VII

, and Posted on

Several recent cases are poised to set a major tonal shift in the realm of LGBT employee rights following the Supreme Court’s 2015 landmark decision in Obergefell v. Hodges. As part of its ongoing coverage of LGBT employment issues, Orrick offers its insights and predictions as courts continue to contemplate where sexual identity fits within this changing landscape of protected statuses. READ MORE →

EEOC Issues First Update on National Origin Discrimination Since 2002

and Posted on

In its first update in 14 years, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) issued new Enforcement Guidance on National Origin Discrimination (“Enforcement Guidance”) on November 21, 2016, replacing its 2002 Compliance Manual on National Origin Discrimination. With input from approximately 20 organizations and individuals, the Enforcement Guidance addresses important legal developments over the past 14 years on national origin issues ranging from employment decisions and workplace harassment to human trafficking. READ MORE →

Cat’s Paw Making New Tracks: Second Circuit Extends Cat’s Paw Principle to Retaliation Claims and to Low-Level Employees

and Posted on

The “cat’s paw” doctrine, a concept first coined by Seventh Circuit Judge Richard Posner in 1990 and adopted by the Supreme Court in 2011, applies when an employee is subjected to an adverse employment action by a decision maker who does not have any discriminatory animus but who bases his or her decision upon information from another who has such an improper motive.  In Vasquez v. Empress Ambulance Service, Inc., the Second Circuit recently held that the “cat’s paw” theory may be used to support recovery for Title VII retaliation, in addition to discrimination, claims and then extended the doctrine to permit liability if the individual with the discriminatory or retaliatory motive is a low-level employee, not just a supervisor.

READ MORE →

Court-Sanctioned Employee Theft? Self-Help Discovery May Be Protected Activity In Discrimination Cases

, and Posted on

Recently in Verdrager v. Mintz, Levin, Cohn, Ferris, Glovsky & Popeo, P.C., No. SJC-11901, 2015 WL 10937776 (Mass. May 31, 2016), the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts held, as a matter of first impression, that self-help discovery “may in certain circumstances constitute protected activity” under the state anti-retaliation statute, provided that, “the employee’s actions are reasonable in the totality of the circumstances.”

READ MORE →

Employers Left Hanging Again:  Coates v. Farmers Reaches Settlement & Still No Answers on Interpreting California’s Fair Pay Act

, and Posted on

Plaintiff Lynne Coates filed a class action lawsuit against Farmers on April 29, 2015 alleging gender discrimination claims under Title VII and California’s Fair Employment and Housing Act, including violations of the federal and California equal pay acts and California’s Private Attorneys General Act. In this post on Orrick’s Equal Pay Pulse blog, Orrick attorneys Erin Connell, Allison Riechert Giese and Megan Lawson examine Coates v. Farmers and what it means for employers as well as future equal pay claims in California.

Equal Pay Day 2016:  Where Are We 20 Years Later?

Posted on

Today marks the twentieth anniversary of “Equal Pay Day,” which the National Committee on Pay Equity launched as a public awareness event in 1996 to symbolize how far into the year women must work to earn what men earned in the previous year.  In more than 50 years since enactment of the federal Equal Pay Act (“EPA”) and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (“Title VII”), women have made significant progress in the workplace and now make up roughly half of the American workforce.  However, women working full time still earn, on average, 79 cents for every dollar earned by men, and this number has barely moved in over a decade.  That said, it is still not clear that employer bias is to blame for the gap that remains.  Indeed, the pay gap measures only the difference in average earnings between all men and all women; it is not a proxy for pay bias—i.e., the failure to pay women equal pay for equal work.  Eliminating pay bias is important, but focusing heavily on perceived employer bias obscures a much more complex web of factors contributing to the problem of pay differences between men and women.

READ MORE →

California DLSE Posts FAQs on New Fair Pay Law but Leaves Tough Questions Unanswered

Posted on

Three months after the California Fair Pay Act took effect on January 1, 2016, the California Division of Labor Standards Enforcement (“DLSE”) has issued answers to FAQs about the new law, which by all counts is the most employee-friendly equal pay law in the nation.  But for California employers who anxiously have been awaiting official guidance on the Act’s many new terms and standards, the FAQs provide little satisfaction.  Rather, they focus more on informing employees on how to bring a claim.  Nor has the DLSE otherwise spoken publicly about how it plans to enforce the new law; instead, the agency appears to be taking its time and exercising caution as it potentially sets the stage for the rest of the nation.

READ MORE →