In a unanimous decision, the U.S. Supreme Court recently clarified the circumstances under which an employer may deny a request for a religious accommodation under Title VII. Specifically, in Groff v. DeJoy, the Court held that in order to justify denying a request, an employer must now demonstrate that granting a religious accommodation would
Ursula Siverling
Two Neighboring States Recently Joined a Growing Movement to Provide Paid Family Leave
By Ursula Siverling on
Posted in Employee Benefits
Maryland and Delaware recently joined the growing list of states that have enacted legislation requiring employers to offer paid family and medical leave. Both states are still working on implementing regulations for the new laws; but, in the meantime, below is a brief summary of what you need to know about these laws and when…
Allegheny County’s Paid Sick Leave Ordinance Takes Effect
By Ursula Siverling on
Posted in Workplace Compliance
Allegheny County recently enacted an ordinance requiring paid sick leave for covered employees (joining the cities of Pittsburgh and Philadelphia, which already have paid sick leave ordinances on the books). The ordinance took effect on December 15, and requires certain employees be given 40 hours of annual paid leave for a variety of reasons, including…
Long COVID may be a disability, Biden Says
By Ursula Siverling on
Posted in Discrimination & Harassment
The Biden Administration announced earlier this summer that Long COVID may qualify as a disability under the Americans with Disabilities Act (“ADA”), the Rehabilitation Act and several other federal statutes offering protection for disabled individuals. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has defined “Long COVID” as new or ongoing symptoms of COVID-19 that can…
Are Medical Marijuana Users Protected by the Pennsylvania Human Relations Act?
By Denise Elliott & Ursula Siverling on
Posted in Employer Liability, Workplace Trends
The answer to this question is . . . it depends. Based on three recent court decisions, whether the Pennsylvania Human Relations Act (“PHRA”) protects medical marijuana (“MMJ”) users from discrimination on the basis of their current use of MMJ appears to depend on the specific accommodation requested by the user. We summarize these key…
EEOC Provides Guidance on Employer Testing for COVID-19
By Ursula Siverling on
The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) updated the guidance document titled “What You Should Know About COVID-19 and the ADA, the Rehabilitation Act and Other EEO Laws” on April 23, 2020 to address employer testing for COVID-19 in the workplace. The EEOC’s guidance document is a series of technical questions and answers geared…
An Employer’s Guide to Managing the Coronavirus in the Workplace
By Ursula Siverling & Andrew L. Levy on
Posted in Workplace Trends
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the Coronavirus, or COVID-19 as it has been named, is a respiratory illness that can spread from person to person. COVID-19 is a novel coronavirus that was first identified in late 2019 during an investigation into an outbreak in Wuhan, China. Cases of coronavirus have…
Final Rule Issued by US Department of Labor Clarifying Joint Employment under the Fair Labor Standards Act
By Ursula Siverling on
Posted in Employer Liability, Workplace Trends
As a follow up to its Notice of Proposed Rulemaking issued in April 2019, the US Department of Labor (DOL) announced on January 12, 2020, the issuance of a Final Rule to revise and clarify the standard for joint employment status under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). The DOL explained that the Final Rule…