Recently in Employment Law Category

Would Justice Sonia Sotomayor -- the Wise Latina herself -- sue her beloved New York City? Perish the thought. New York, after all, is her beloved world.

But Gladys Sotomayor, a 56-year-old, Hispanic New York City schoolteacher who shares a surname with the Justice, claims that the New York City Department of Education skirted a slew of state and federal law by discriminating against her.

The Second Circuit Court of Appeals went meta this week, finding that a former Hofstra grad student could proceed with her retaliation claim against the school.

This is pretty much the Inception of retaliation suits. The student, Lauren Summa, claims that she lost her student job at the University because she filed a retaliation claim against the University after she lost a previous student job.

Take a moment to wrap your head around that.

It’s inappropriate for a supervisor to tell his subordinate that her husband was “not taking care of [her] in bed.” That’s a one-way ticket to a sexual harassment lawsuit.

It’s also inappropriate to record your boss without his knowledge or permission. That’s a one-way ticket to termination.

Last week, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals reinstated a Rochester Police Department employee’s hostile work environment claim, finding that the circumstances surrounding inappropriate statements that started and ended during her employment were sufficient to warrant a trial. The court, however, refused to revive the employee’s retaliation claim, concluding that the Department had cause to terminate her because she admitted to recording Department employees without authorization.

There are good reasons to become a blogger. You like making sassy comments. You have a pipe dream of building an Internet following that will lead to a book deal. You generally enjoy writing.

But you don't go into blogging for the money. Especially not for a piece of a $315 million pie. Seriously. You might have a better shot at winning the Powerball than making it big as a blogger.

James McElwee is in his mid-30s with a neurodevelopmental disorder formally classified as Pervasive Developmental Disorder - Not Otherwise Specified (PDD-NOS) and informally called an autism spectrum disorder.

In 1996, McElwee began participating in a volunteer program at Valley View Center for Nursing Care and Rehabilitation, where he performed janitorial and housekeeping duties and transported nursing home residents to religious and social events. McElwee competently performed his assigned tasks, and the volunteer program improved his self-esteem.

In 2009, McElwee was dismissed from the volunteer program after engaging in erratic and harassing behavior toward female staff members.

Lawyers are a well-caffeinated bunch, and many of us get our regular fix at Starbucks.

You’ve probably noticed a plexiglass tip box next to the register while ordering your latte in your neighborhood Starbucks. While other coffee shops may boast tip jar/can variations with messages like “Tips = Good Karma” or “Thanks a Latte,” the Starbucks tip receptacles are uniform. And they’re the subject of a challenge before the Second Circuit Court of Appeals.

The question in the case: Which Starbucks staffers get to share in the tip box bounty?

The most common form of redress for sexual harassment is a check. But what about injunctive relief? Should a court order a business to keep a harasser away from employees?

The Second Circuit Court of Appeals recently concluded that, in the face of egregious acts of sexual harassment perpetuated by a single employee, a district court abused its discretion when it declined to order injunctive relief to ensure that that harasser was no longer in a position to continue his offensive conduct.

How much leeway do public employees have when criticizing operations within their departments?

Very little, according to a recent First Amendment retaliation ruling from the Second Circuit Court of Appeals.

The Second Circuit Court of Appeals weighed in on a firefighter discrimination lawsuit this week, finding that the city of Buffalo, New York, did not discriminate against African-Americans with the test it used to promote firefighters, Thomson Reuters News & Insight reports.

In upholding the test results, the Second Circuit concluded that an employer can show that "promotional examinations having a disparate impact on a protected class are job related and supported by business necessity when the job analysis that produced the test relied on data not specific to the employer at issue."

Less than 10 percent of New York City firefighters are black or Hispanic, but more than half of the city's 8 million residents identify with a racial minority group, reports CNBC. Those numbers may have weighed on U.S. District Judge Nicholas Garaufis, when he dubbed FDNY "a stubborn bastion of white male privilege" and wrote that the rampant discrimination in the department was a "shameful blight on the records of the six mayors of this city who failed to take responsibility for doing what was necessary to end it."

According to city attorney Deborah Brenner, those comments belie bias. Tuesday, Brenner asked the Second Circuit Court of Appeals to vacate Garaufis' order in an FDNY lawsuit and appoint a new judge to the case.