Life imitating art? Pregnant and fired — when will employers learn?

The Ohio Chamber of Commerce brings us this funny video about how not to fire pregnant employee:

Sadly, life sometimes imitates art.

Last week, the EEOC announced that it had sued a Mississippi hotel operator for … you guessed it … pregnancy discrimination:

According to the EEOC’s suit, Te’Shawn Harmon informed her manager of her pregnancy on her first day of work.  That evening, the manager terminated Harmon and replaced her with a non-pregnant employee.

Ugh. Some call it stupidity. I like to think of it as job security.

Litigation publicity as an adverse action for retaliation

Ray v. Ropes & Gray LLP [D. Mass. 8/16/13) [pdf] teaches a valuable lesson about what can go wrong when a dispute between an employer and a former employee goes public.

John Ray is a former associate of Boston white-shoe law firm Ropes & Gray. When the firm passed him over for partner, he first filed an EEOC discrimination charge, and then a lawsuit, claiming that the firm had illegally passed him over for partner. After Ray leaked to a legal blog a copy of an EEOC probable-cause finding on his retaliation claim, the blog sought comment from Ropes & Gray. The firm responded by providing a copy of an earlier EEOC no-probable-cause finding—which the blog published, and which included details about Ray’s performance reviews and an internal investigation into Ray’s alleged criminal conduct while at the firm.

In the subsequent litigation, Ray claimed that the release of the EEOC’s no-probable-cause finding was a sufficient adverse action to support a claim for retaliation under Title VII. The district court agreed:

Title VII prohibits an employer from responding to protected activity by taking an action that would “dissuade[] a reasonable worker from making or supporting a charge of discrimination.” The threat of dissemination of derogatory private information, even if true, would likely deter any reasonable employee from pursuing a complaint against his employer.

On her Employment & Labor Insider blog, my friend, Robin Shea, takes issue with this aspect of the decision.

I don’t consider it “retaliatory” for the firm to want to protect its reputation by releasing, in pure self-defense, a document that is a public record. Mr. Ray had a right to file a charge and a lawsuit, but once he started bad-mouthing Ropes & Gray…, he opened a door that he shouldn’t have opened.

I agree with Robin. Ropes & Gray did not start the public war of words with its former employee. Ray took his issues public first. An employer should have the right to defend itself in the sphere of public opinion. If the employer fired the first publicity shot, I could better understand a finding of retaliation. Merely responding to a smear that someone else started, however, should not be viewed as an adverse action, no matter how wide Title VII’s retaliation lens might be.

Nevertheless, this case illustrates that retaliation comes in all shapes and sizes, and employers must act with extreme care when dealing with any employee who engaged in protected activity. If something such as responding to publicity started by a disgruntled ex-employee can constitute an adverse action, the scope of what acts fall outside Title VII’s definition of “adverse” is getting smaller and smaller, which makes these claims all the more dangerous for employers.

WIRTW #285 (the “back to school” edition)

(Yes, I’m “that” dad).

Here’s the rest of what I read this week:

Discrimination

• Fox Sports 1 Launched With A Major Discrimination Lawsuit Problem — from Deadspin
• Fifth Circuit Reverses Summary Judgment in Win for Employees — from Texas Employment Law Blog
• Old Workers Rule! (Age Discrimination Drools) - Guest Post — from Screw You Guys, I’m Going Home
• “My Disability Made Me Do It,” Seems to Say The San Diego Mayor: Sexual Harassment vs. Disability Discrimination — from WinWinHR
• Paula Deen Ruling Reminds Us: Title VII Protects White Employees Who Are Discriminated Against for Their Association with Black Employees — from Suits by Suits
• Clearing up Sexual Harassment — from Mike Haberman’s Omega HR Solutions
• Another harassment myth, debunked: “If we don’t have a policy, we can’t get in trouble for violating it” — from Warren & Associates Blog
• EEOC Provides Guidance on when a “Partner” is an Employee — from Washington D.C. Employment Law Update

Social Media & Workplace Technology

• Stop Asking for Candidate Facebook Passwords — from Fistful of Talent
• Four easy ways to break the law by viewing an employee’s Facebook posts — from Eric Meyer’s Employer Handbook Blog
• Doctor sued for $1.5 million for allegedly photographing patient without consent and posting on Facebook — from Shear on Social Media Law

HR & Employee Relations

• 7 Lawsuit-Inviting Mistakes Managers Make — from i-Sight Investigation Software Blog
• 8 Things You Should Never Say in a Termination Meeting — from California Employment Law
• Where Can Employers Find “Beautiful” Employees? — from Phil Miles’s Lawffice Space
• How Should (and Shouldn’t) You Conduct a Workplace Investigation? — from The Emplawyerologist

Wage & Hour

• For Same-Sex Couples: If You’re Married in CT, You Have a ‘Spouse’ Under FMLA — from Dan Schwartz’s Connecticut Employment Law Blog
• DOL Updates Guidance on FMLA and Same-Sex Marriage — from Jeff Nowak’s FMLA Insights  
• FMLA Leave or ADA Accommodation (Or Both)? Overview of Beyond the Basics — from Stoel Rives World of Employment
• Unpaid Volunteer Files Unpaid Wage Lawsuit Against MLB — from Overtime Lawyer Blog
• Check Your Math! Fluctuating Workweek Damage Calculation Approved Yet Again — from The Wage and Hour Litigation Blog
• Affordable day care? One lawyer earns 50 cents after footing the child-care bill — from ABA Journal Daily News
• Head’s Up For Employers: (New) Confusion over Affordable Care Act Delays — from Employment Matters Blog
• The Common Sense Solution to Unpaid Internships — from The HR Capitalist, Kris Dunn

Labor Relations

• Why the NLRB Is Its Own Worst Enemy — from Molly DiBianca’s Delaware Employment Law Blog
• Overtaken by Events — from Labor Relations Update
• Employer waived issue of NLRB’s lack of quorum — from Ross Runkel Report
• Confidentiality policies: The NLRB weighs in — from HR Cafe+

Relying on stereotypes will put a target on your back

According to The Huffington Post, a group of Hispanic employees is suing Target for national origin discrimination. Their evidence—an internal memo that included the following “Multi-Cultural Tips” for its managers:

a. Food: not everyone eats tacos and burritos;

b. Music: not everyone dances to salsa;

c. Dress: not everyone wears a sombrero;

d. Mexicans (lower education level, some may be undocumented);

e. Cubans (Political refugees, legal status, higher education level); and

f. They may say ‘OK, OK’ and pretend to understand, when they do not, just to save face.

That’s a pretty good smoking gun, if you ask me.

It served as a good reminder about the dangers of stereotypes in the workplace.

There is no hiding that stereotypes—both positive and negative—exist. To some degree we all harbor them (and anyone who tells you differently is lying to you and themselves). The better job you do of insulating your business’s personnel decisions from stereotypes, the less often you will find yourself in need of my services—which is a positive stereotype you can embrace.

This post originally appeared on The Legal Workplace Blog.

Where’s Waldo? She’s teaching you a lesson on the high cost of sexual harassment

While employed as an electrical line worker for Consumers Energy Company from 2001 through 2005, Theresa Waldo claimed that she suffered the following incidents of sexual harassment, about which she complained to her supervisor, union rep, and HR manager, each of whom allegedly ignored her:

1. She was repeatedly called derogatory and demeaning names, such as “bitch” and “wench.”
2. Coworkers threw her purse out of a work truck and into the dirt, telling her that “there were no purses allowed in these trucks.” When she responded by carrying a smaller purse in her pocket, she was called a “dike.”
3. Her coworkers refused to let her travel to a bathroom, instead telling her that if she “wanted to work a man’s job,” she had “to pee like a man.”
4. Coworkers locked her in a porta-potty with duct tape.
5. Coworkers isolated her at work sites by excluding her from lunch trips and forcing her to walk instead of riding in trucks with the male employees.
6. There were sexually explicit pictures on the work trucks.

Based on the foregoing, a jury awarded Waldo $400,000 in compensatory damages and $7,500,000 in punitive damages on her sexual harassment claim. Applying Title VII’s damage caps, the trial judge reduced those awards to a combined $300,000. In addition to the capped damage award, the judge also awarded Waldo $684,506 in attorney’s fees, which the 6th Circuit affirmed.

Who wins these cases? According to Judge Sutton’s dissenting opinion, it’s the lawyers, not the litigants:

I join all sections of the majority’s opinion save one: its decision to uphold the district court’s award of $684,506 in attorney’s fees—all but $1,000 of the fees requested by Waldo’s attorney without any additional reduction for time or rate, including for all work incurred to lose the first jury trial, all work incurred to lose six of the seven claims (four of them state law claims) and for all work incurred to win $300,000 in the second jury trial. One can be forgiven for thinking that Waldo’s two attorneys, not Waldo, were the true winners. This is good work if you can get it.

Harassment takes a toll. It exactly a high emotional cost on the victim. It exacts a steep legal cost on the company defending a lawsuit that can be salacious and unpopular. Yet, as this case illustrates, the people that often win are the lawyers. It may sound odd for a lawyer to argue against litigation. Yet, as I’ve heard one of my partners espouse more than once, “When you’re litigating you’re losing.” This case is the perfect example. From start to finish, Theresa Waldo spent more than 8 years of her life (from June 2005 until August 2013) litigating. For that time and aggravation, not to mention the on-the-job harassment that she suffered, she was awarded $300,000. Her lawyers, on the other hand, pocketed more than double that amount.

Who really won, and what does this case teach us about the benefit of evaluating the risk of cases and resolving those that have merit.

Why you should take all harassment complaints seriously

Today I am going to discuss two racial harassment cases decided by the same court, on the same day, but with different results.

• In Paasewe v. Action Group, Inc. (6th Cir. 7/17/13), the plaintiff alleged that he was called “boy,” threatened because he wore a Barack Obama t-shirt, and was demeaned because he was a black man driving a nice car. The court concluded that a jury question existed on whether Paasewe’s allegations gave rise to a racially hostile work environment.
  
• In Nicholson v. City of Clarksville (6th Cir. 7/17/13), the plaintiff alleged that co-workers repeated used the n-word and other offensive phrases to describe African-Americans, in addition to incidents of profanity directed at African-American employees. The court concluded that no jury could reasonably concluded that Nicholson had been subjected to a racially hostile work environment, and affirmed the trial court’s dismissal of his harassment claim.

You can read each of these cases for yourself, and come up with good arguments for, and against, the employer in each. The point I want to make, however, runs deeper than any analysis of the legal merits (or lack thereof) of each case. Deciding whether a workplace is sufficiently “hostile” to support a harassment claim under the civil rights laws is highly subjective. One judge’s or jury’s illegal hostile environment is another’s workplace triviality.
An employer’s primary goal should not be to win these cases on their merits when filed, but to prevent them from being filed in the first place. How does a business accomplish this goal?

• Have a written anti-harassment policy.
• Provide periodic anti-harassment training.
• Foster open channels of communication between employees and management.
• Take all workplace complaints seriously by investigating each (no matter how trivial it may seem), and by imposing effective remedial action if necessary.
• Maintain a diverse workforce.

Cherry picking only those complaints that you believe are serious or legitimate opens up to scrutiny those complaints that are buried or ignored, which, in the hands of the right plaintiff could prove to be an expensive omission.

How to draft an enforceable noncompete agreement in 5 steps

According to the Wall Street Journal, litigation over noncompete agreements is rising:

More employers are requiring their new workers to sign “noncompete” agreements, which they say are needed to prevent insiders from taking trade secrets, business relationships or customer data to competing firms when they leave.… 

The number of published U.S. court decisions involving noncompete agreements rose 61% since 2002, to 760 cases last year…. Since most cases are settled out of court and most opinions aren’t reported, that tally is likely low.

Yet, having an employee sign a noncompete agreement and being able to enforce that agreement against that employee are two completely different animals. In today’s job market, courts have become increasingly skeptical of agreements that limit an employee’s ability to find employment.

Thus, what steps can you take to maximize your ability to enforce the agreements that your employees sign? Here are 5 practical steps.

1. Pick the right type of covenant. What type of competition are you trying to protect? Are you trying to protect your company’s most guarded secrets from you biggest competitors, or are you trying to prevent a salesperson from cherry picking your customers? If all you need is an agreement prohibiting an employee from soliciting customers, clients, or vendors, then limit the agreement to protect that interest. Putting it another way, if all you need is a no-solicitation agreement to protect your legitimate interests, then only require such an agreement as a condition of employment. Do not cast too wide a net, or a court will either narrow it for you, or, worse, toss out the entire out to sea.

2. Know your jurisdiction. Different states have different laws pertaining to the enforceability of noncompete agreements. California, for example, will only enforce such agreements in very limited circumstances, while Ohio will enforce any agreement reasonable in time, geographical scope, and the legitimate interest you seek to protect. Picking the right state’s law to apply to your agreement could make the difference between and enforceable contract and a worthless piece of paper.

3. Provide consideration. An employee must receive something of value in exchange for giving up the right to compete. If the covenant is signed at the beginning of employment, the hiring itself usually meets this requirement. For current employees, though, what qualifies as “value” varies from state to state. In Ohio, for example, a keeping an at-will employee employed is enough. Other states, however, require something of monetary value, such as a raise, bonus, or extra vacation days.

4. Enforce, enforce, enforce. Do not be selective in enforcing your contracts. Suppose Employee A and Employee B are subject to the same noncompete covenants. Employee A quits and works for a competitor, and you ignore it. If Employee B does the same, but you sue to enforce that noncompete, you will have a hard time proving the legitimacy of the business interest you are seeking to protect in light of the fact that you chose to ignore the same as to Employee A.

5. Ask for help. The Internet is a wonderful tool. A wealth of information is a world away. In the click of a mouse you can learn who led the National League in stolen bases in 1971 (it’s Lou Brock), or you can find examples of noncompete agreements. Be wary, though, of using these examples in your business without first having your counsel vet them. As noted above, laws vary from state to state. They also change from year to year as new statutes are passed, old statutes are amended, and court pass judgment on various legal issues. No matter the quality of the appearance of the form you locate or the trustworthiness of site on which you find it, you have no idea when it was drafted, which state’s law under which it was drafted to comply, or if counsel ever reviewed it. There is nothing wrong with a little DIY legal work on the Internet. There is a lot wrong, however, with all your legal work being DIY. If you don’t want to pay your lawyer to start from scratch, at least let him or her review your forms and offer an opinion on their viability in your specific jurisdiction.

These five steps aren’t the only considerations in drafting a strong, enforceable noncompete agreement. But, they are a good foundation to placing you in the best position to protect your business from an employee trying to work for a competitor.