The United States Supreme Court has held that under the Fair Labor Standards Act (“FLSA”), the federal law that requires proper payment of wages and overtime pay, an employer cannot retaliate against an employee who complains about a possible violation of that law, even where the complaint is oral rather than in writing. Kasten v.
Retaliation
U.S. Supreme Court Rules that Title VII Permits Third-Party Retaliation Claims
The United States Supreme Court has unanimously held that an employee may bring Title VII retaliation claims where he or she is subject to an adverse employment action, because someone else “closely related” to the employee engaged in protected activity, such as filing a charge of discrimination or opposing discrimination.
In Thompson v. North American …
Financial Regulators Set Out to Get Their Man: Federally Mandated Bounties and Anti-Retaliation Provisions Designed to Regulate the Financial Services Industry
As stated in our previous blog posting, President Barack Obama signed the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (“Dodd-Frank” or the “Act”) into law on July 21, 2010, with the objective of ushering in a new era of financial regulation and transparency. The Act’s range encompasses not only the usual group of…
U.S. Supreme Court Protects Employees Who Participate In Internal Harassment Investigations
In another victory for employees, the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled unanimously that employees who answer questions in an employer’s internal investigation of possible harassment or discrimination are protected from retaliation for doing so, even though they did not come forward to complain. Crawford v. Metropolitan Gov’t of Nashville and Davidson County, Tennessee, No.
U.S. Supreme Court Faces Variety of Employment Issues
The U.S. Supreme Court begins its 2008-09 term with several cases related to labor and employment, raising issues that include the protection afforded employees who participate in sexual harassment investigations, management’s right to require union employees to arbitrate discrimination claims rather than raise them in court, and whether employers calculating pension benefits must credit employees for the time they missed work for pregnancy leaves taken before pregnancy discrimination was outlawed. These cases are summarized below.
Continue Reading U.S. Supreme Court Faces Variety of Employment Issues
U.S. Supreme Court Holds That Discrimination Law Also Prohibits Retaliation
The U.S. Supreme Court today held that 42 U.S.C. § 1981 (Section 1981), a law enacted just after the Civil War, which prohibits race discrimination in the making and enforcement of contracts, also protects persons who are subject to retaliation because they have complained about such discrimination – even though Section 1981 never mentions retaliation.