In Prowel v. Wise Business Forms, Inc., the Third Circuit reversed a district court’s granting of summary judgment in favor of an employer on a claim of gender stereotyping discrimination. The claim was brought by an admittedly homosexual employee who alleged he was subject to gender discrimination, retaliation and religious discrimination based on his

In Weaver v. Harpster, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled that small employers (three or fewer employees) may  not liable for acts of employment discrimination. Under the Pennsylvania Human Relations Act (PHRA), employers with four or more employees are prohibited from discriminating against their employees on the basis of sex.  At common law, an employer may

The Prohibition on Excessive Overtime in Health Care Act (Act 102) became effective on July 1, 2009. Health care facilities covered by the law include hospitals, ASCs, hospices, long-term care facilities and other inpatient facilities, but it excludes private physician offices and group practices. Employees protected by the law include all nonsupervisory employees involved in

A governmental employer cannot throw out a employment promotion test because it thinks that the test results have a disparate impact against a minority group unless there is a "strong basis in evidence" to believe it will be liable for discrimination unless it rejects the test results. Fear of litigation alone cannot justify an employer’s decision

Effective July 10, 2009, medical insurers covering small employers in Pennsylvania will be required to offer COBRA-like continuation coverage to qualified employees and their eligible dependents. The new law covers small employers who have between two and 19 employees on a typical business day during the preceding calendar year. 

The so-called mini-COBRA coverage expands on the

The United States Supreme Court decision in Gross v. FBL Financial Services, Inc. creates a rift between the treatment of so called "mixed-motive" cases under the ADEA and Title VII. Under Title VII, an employee may allege that he suffered an adverse employment action because of both permissible and impermissible considerations—i.e., a “mixed-motives” case. If a Title

On June 9, Facebook, the social networking website, publicly announced that beginning Saturday, June 13 at 12:01 a.m. U.S. EDT, it will allow users to adopt personalized username URLs (e.g., facebook.com/yourname). Trademark owners who want to prevent their trademarks from being registered as a Facebook username URL by another Facebook user should take action as

An employer’s liability for co-worker harassment exists if the employer knew or should have known of the harassment and failed to take prompt remedial action. In other words, an employer may be liable for non-supervisory co-worker harassment if the employer was negligent in failing to discover the co-worker harassment or in responding to a report of