The Majority Opinion: Legal Blog

As always, there are some EEOC cases that jump out at me when I review developments on that front.  Below are a couple EEOC cases and settlements that stand out. Age Discrimination Suit Settled for $30,000.00 Against Llanerch Country Club Earlier this month, the EEOC announced a settlement had been reached with Llanerch Country Club ("LCC") after the employer agreed to pay $30,000.00 to settle an age discrimination lawsuit.  The suit arose out of a claim that LCC began to treat its oldest groundskeeper in the grounds maintenance department differently than younger workers.  LCC was apparently laying the oldest groundskeeper off during the winter season.  As recently as December of 2016, the oldest groundskeeper was laid off for the winter but was later informed he would not be recalled or rehired in 2017 because LCC was "looking to take the staff in a younger direction".  Less than three weeks later, LCC hired nine other groundskeepers that were si...

Last week, two different minimum wage bills passed the Senate Public Affairs Committee and are now to be taken up by another Senate Committee, the Senate Corporations and Transportation Committee, in the New Mexico Legislature.  While both minimum wage bills would provide a boost to minimum wage workers in the state, they do differ in some respects.  Of note, the statewide minimum wage rate in New Mexico is currently set at $7.50/hour for most workers and $2.13/hour for tipped workers.  (However, some cities in the state have a higher minimum wage rate for hourly workers, including Santa Fe at $11.40/hour, Las Cruces at $10.10/hour, and Albuquerque at $9.20/hour.) House Bill 31 This legislation, proposed by Representative Miguel Garcia, would raise the statewide minimum wage rate to $10/hour this July and provide a phased in increase to $12/hour in 2021.  Under this proposal, there would be inflation adjusted increased after 2021.  This past Saturd...

As with many employment and labor law related cases (and bills) being litigated around the country, there are always a few that stand.  This is one to keep an eye on. Last Wednesday, the Colorado Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing on the Equal Pay For Equal Work Act which was recently introduced in the Colorado General Assembly.  Notably, this legislation would prohibit an employer in the state from discriminating between employees on the basis of sex (or on the basis of sex in combination with another protected status) by paying an employee of one sex a wage rate less than the wage rate paid to an employee of a different sex for substantially similar work.  (Exceptions are carved out, however, for seniority, merit, or a system that measures earnings by quantity or quality of product.). The bill would also require employers in the state to post salary ranges during the application process, ban retaliation for filing complaints, allow an easier path for la...

Non-compete agreements are always a favorite topic of mine.  This week, I came across a similar type of agreement used in the employment context (although different in many respects), "No Poaching" agreements.  As Janette Levey Frisch writes, while some employers may utilize these "No Poaching" agreements, the recent crackdown by the Department of Justice in regard to the use of these agreements should serve as a warning to employers:  be careful, be very careful . As always, below are a couple articles that caught my eye this week. Salary History Bans: An Overview HRDive recently published an overview of the cities and states that have enacted bans on employers asking applicants about their salary history.  This particular article provides information on each ban, such as when the ban went into effect as well as some of the specifics of each particular ban (including links to the text of each law/ordinance as well as any amendments.)  Next week, I...

Parker v. Reema Consulting Services, Inc . - Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals Facts :  From December 2014 until May 2016, Evangeline Parker ("Parker") worked for Reema Consulting Services, Inc. ("Reema") at a warehouse facility.  She was promoted six times and ultimately became Assistant Operations Manager in March of 2016.  Approximately two weeks after she obtained the Assistant Operations Manager position, she learned that certain male employees were circulating within Reema "an unfounded, sexually-explicit rumor about her" that "falsely and maliciously portrayed her as having [had] a sexual relationship" with a higher ranking manager, Demarcus Pickett ("Pickett"), in order to obtain her promotion.  The rumor apparently started with Donte Jennings ("Jennings"), another Reema employee, that had started working at the company at the same time as Parker but because of Parker's promotions, came to become jealous and ho...

This is turning into the month of minimum wage updates, right?  On February 5th, in a 5 - 2 decision, the Florida Supreme Court dismissed an appeal over a Miami Beach minimum wage ordinance that would have raised the hourly minimum wage rate in the city up to $13.31/hour by 2021.  That ordinance, approved in 2016, would have set the hourly minimum wage rate in the city above that of the statewide rate (the statewide hourly minimum wage rate was previously set at $8.10/hour in 2016 and currently sits at $8.46/hour today).   However, business groups and some Republicans in the state cried foul over the ordinance, pointing to a 2003 state preemption law that bars local municipalities from setting their own minimum wage rates.  Miami Beach attempted to argue that the wage hike was needed as hourly workers could not afford to make ends meet.  Subsequently, litigation commenced and Miami-Dade County Judge Peter Lopez issuing a ruling that Miami Beach’s minimum ...

Recently, the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals agreed to undertake a full court review of a 2015 Alabama law which prohibits cities or local municipalities in the state from adopting their own laws in regard to minimum wages, leave benefits, collective bargaining, and other employment related matters.   In order to follow how this case came about, let us start at the beginning.  The Birmingham City Council passed a resolution in 2015 that called on the Alabama Legislature to raise the state's hourly minimum wage rate up to about $10/hour.  After the Legislature declined to do so, the Birmingham City Council passed a local ordinance to increase the minimum wage rates for all hourly workers within the City's boundaries.  The Birmingham local ordinance sought to raise the hourly wage rate from $7.25/hour (the statewide and federal hourly wage rate) up to $10.10/hour.  However, the Alabama Legislature quickly sought to preempt this (and other related) l...