The Employment Lawyer Blog by John F. Buckley IV
Gale Burns
Recent Posts
Challenges to the Individual Mandate Under the New Health-Care Law
Posted by Gale Burns on Tue, May 15, 2012 @ 11:05 AM
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Topics: legal research, John Buckley, Commerce Clause, PPACA, individual mandate, health-care reform constitutional, health care reform constitutionality
EMPLOYMENT LAW: Supreme Court Upholds Arizona Illegal Workers Law Against Preemption Challenge
Posted by Gale Burns on Mon, Jan 23, 2012 @ 16:01 PM
January 24, 2012
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Topics: legal research, employment law, John Buckley, Legal Arizona Workers Act, sanctions against employers knowingly hiring undoc, E-Verify to check legal status, federal court challenge to Act, U.S. Chamber of Commerce v. Whiting, 131 S. Ct. 1968, federal Immigration Reform and Control Act not pre
EMPLOYMENT LAW: New NLRB Rule Mandates Posting of Employee Union Rights
Posted by Gale Burns on Wed, Oct 12, 2011 @ 10:10 AM
December 23, 2011
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Topics: employment law, John Buckley, NLRB, legal resesarch, posting of employee rights, mandate, effective Nov. 14, 2011, right to organize a union and bargain collectively, application to employer covered by National Labor, criteria at 29 C.F.R. § 104.204 table, right to bring formal charges against employer for, six-month statute of limitations
EMPLOYMENT LAW: Accommodating Employees' Religious Observances and Practices
Posted by Gale Burns on Fri, Jun 3, 2011 @ 10:06 AM
June 7, 2011
John Buckley, Senior Attorney, National Legal Research Group
Title VII makes it unlawful for an employer to "discharge any individual, or otherwise discriminate against any individual with respect to his . . . terms, conditions, or privileges of employment, because of such individual's . . . religion." 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-2(a)(1). "Religion" includes "all aspects of religious observance and practice, . . . unless an employer demonstrates that he is unable to reasonably accommodate . . . an employee's . . . religious observance or practice without undue hardship on the . . . employer's business." Id. § 2000e(j). Thus, it is unlawful for an employer not to make reasonable accommodations for an employee's religious practices, unless doing so would impose an undue hardship. Ansonia Bd. of Educ. v. Philbrook, 479 U.S. 60, 63 & n.1 (1986).
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Topics: legal research, employment law, John Buckley, Title VII, 42 U.S.C. § 2000e, reasonable accomodation, religion, undue hardship, Maroko v. Werner Enterprises, de minimis burden
EMPLOYMENT DISCRIMINATION: Supreme Court Applies Proximate Cause Analysis to USERRA "Cat's Paw" Case
Posted by Gale Burns on Tue, May 24, 2011 @ 11:05 AM
May 6, 2011
John Buckley, Senior Attorney, National Legal Research Group
If an employee's supervisor performs an act motivated by antimilitary animus and if that act is a proximate cause of an ultimate adverse employment action, then the employer is liable under the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act ("USERRA"). So the Supreme Court recently held in a case in which a U.S. Army reservist relied on the "cat's paw" theory of liability. Staub v. Proctor Hosp., 131 S. Ct. 1186 (2011). A "cat's paw" case is one in which a plaintiff employee seeks to hold his or her employer liable for the discriminatory animus of a supervisor who did not make the ultimate employment decision but who nonetheless influenced that decision. In applying a tort "proximate cause" analysis to the case, the Court reversed the Seventh Circuit's holding that a court cannot admit evidence of a nondecisionmaking supervisor's animus unless it has first determined whether a reasonable jury could find that the supervisor exerted a "singular influence" over the ultimate decisionmaker.
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Topics: legal research, employment law, John Buckley, Supreme Court, Staub v. Proctor Hospital, proximate cause, Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rig, cat's paw case
EMPLOYMENT LAW: Workplace Computers and Other Devices
Posted by Gale Burns on Wed, Feb 9, 2011 @ 16:02 PM
January 21, 2011
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Topics: legal research, employment law, John Buckley, Internet, computers, e-mail, Supreme Court, Fourth Amendment, Quon, texting, IAUP
