Articles Posted in Discrimination

California has good law for employees regarding the admission of evidence that the employer discriminated against other employees, commonly referred to as “me too” evidence. Case law is clear that an employee can submit evidence that the decision maker discriminated against another employee on the same basis for which the employee claims discrimination. See Pantoja…

For years now in California, juries have been instructed that a plaintiff in an employment discrimination case under California law must prove that discrimination was “a motivating reason” or “a motivating factor” in the wrongful employment decision. See, for example, Mixon v. Fair Employment & Housing Commission (1987) 192 Cal.App.3d 1306. This has been essential…

Generally speaking, exhaustion of administrative remedies is an unnecessary hurdle for an employee to jump over on his or her way to court when filing a discrimination, harassment or retaliation claim. Rickards v. UPS (June 19, 2012), ___Cal.App.4th ___ is just another case demonstrating this same point. Mr. Rickards had a claim for discrimination against…

Hoffman Plastic Compounds, Inc. v NLRB, 535 U.S. 137 (2002) created some bad law when it held that the NLRB cannot award a backpay remedy to an employee who was not legally authorized to work in the United States. Since then employers have had a field day in cases where they “suspect” that an employee,…

Nothing is more important than filing a lawsuit within the applicable time limits. One never knows if the court reviewing the case will be sympathetic to an argument that a claim wasn’t really filed late. The best and only lesson to be learned is never to put yourself in the position to argue that a…

Plaintiff’s employment lawyers have long been urging the courts to follow an important reality in employment decisions: discriminating individuals can taint an employment decision made by someone else, and the fact that the final decision maker doesn’t harbour a discriminatory motive himself/herself, should not protect the employer. Some courts have already accepted the “cat’s paw”…