Practice areas
News
Greater Protections for Undocumented Workers
July 25, 2017
Workers receive two big wins in federal court to ensure that their immigration status will not preclude them from raising wage and hour claims under the Fair Labor Standards Act. First, a Federal District Court in Illinois joins New York and other districts across the country to hold that the immigration status of a worker may not be introduced as evidence in a FLSA lawsuit. Kim v. Hakuya Sushi & Kim, Case No. 15-cv-03747. The Ninth Circuit went further and found that a worker can [...]
Lawsuit Exposes Systematic Discrimination in MLB
July 09, 2017
Last week, Angel Hernandez filed a lawsuit, Hernandez v. The Office of the Commissioner of Baseball and Major League Baseball Blue, Inc., Case No. 17-cv-00456, alleging discrimination in how MLB’s promotion and postseason assignment policies are administered for umpires. Despite a remarkable 96.88% accuracy rating on calling balls and strikes in 2016, Hernandez was not assigned to work any of the seven World Series games and entered the 2017 season with the same job title he had when he [...]
New Rights for NYC Independent Contractors
May 16, 2017
With the “Freelance Isn’t Free” Act, NYC Administrative Code § 20-927, et seq., coming into effect this week, New York City workers are better equipped to receive proper payment and protection from prevalent wage theft practices by employers. A skyrocketing number of freelancers, who steadily dominate today’s on-demand service economy, no longer have to worry that their status as independent contractors will impede their ability to receive full payment for their work in a timely [...]
Single Use of a Severe Racial Slur Can Lead to a Hostile Workplace
May 03, 2017
Workers in New York, Vermont, and Connecticut may now point to a single utterance of a racial slur when claiming that an employer has created a discriminatory hostile work environment in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. This is significant as courts within the Second Circuit generally have sought a steady barrage of racial comments when establishing a hostile work environment, and were reluctant to find isolated or sporadic use of racial slurs sufficient. This [...]
Seventh Circuit Rules Sexual Orientation Is Protected By Title VII
April 07, 2017
Employees in Illinois, Indiana, and Wisconsin will be the first workers in the country with the right to sue employers in Federal Court for discriminatory employment practices based on sexual orientation. In Hively v. Ivy Tech Community College, 2017 U.S. App. LEXIS 5839, (7th Cir. 2017), the en banc Seventh Circuit ruled that sexual orientation discrimination is a form of sex discrimination prohibited by Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Chief Circuit Judge Diane P. Wood wrote [...]
