Most employers take proactive steps to prevent and eliminate workplace harassment. Until recently, courts recognized and rewarded the proactive approach. Businesses in Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Delaware could avoid liability for hostile work environment claims if they rooted out the problem before it became “severe and pervasive.”
Courts had long held that a single slur,…
The Pennsylvania Personnel Files Act (also known as the Inspection of Employment Records Law), grants employees in Pennsylvania, or their designated agents, the right to inspect certain portions of their personnel records. The Act requires employers, upon an employee’s request, to permit the employee to inspect the portions of his or her personnel file used…
Prior to June 20, 2017, a powerful tool was available to employers and workers’ compensation carriers to cap exposure on long term workers’ compensation claims. That tool, provided by the Act 44 amendments in 1996, was called an impairment rating evaluation (IRE) and generally worked like this: once a claimant had received 104 weeks of…
In September of 2015, two delivery drivers filed a class action lawsuit in the United States District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania. The employees alleged that their former employer violated the Fair Labor Standards Act by failing to pay them overtime between 2012 and 2015. The class subsequently ballooned to 474 members (and…
Employers often shy away from discharging employees for disciplinary reasons when those employees are receiving workers’ compensation benefits, such as in instances where the employee is working a modified duty assignment. However, such employees can and should be held to the same standards as other employees, including compliance with applicable policies and procedures. Additionally, so…
Workplace rights for LGBT individuals has been a rapidly developing area of the law. A little over two years ago, former President Obama signed an executive order prohibiting federal contractors from discriminating against employees on the basis of their sexual orientation or gender identity. The Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs followed suit by issuing…
As a general rule, an employee who is injured while commuting to or from work is not entitled to workers’ compensation benefits, as the injuries are not deemed to be “in the course and scope of employment” by virtue of the longstanding “going and coming rule.” There are exceptions to the rule, including: (1) situations…
The use of temporary employees provided by agencies that supply laborers, secretaries, nurses or other skilled or unskilled workers to the public and private sector is increasing. Employers who use these temporary agency workers’ must be wary of the relationships created by the use of the temporary agency workers. Are the temporary workers “employed” by…
In 2015, we discussed the new joint-employer standard that was articulated by the National Labor Relations Board in Browning-Ferris Industries of California, Inc. As a reminder, the NLRB held that a joint-employer relationship may be found if two or more entities “are both employers within the meaning of common law, and if they share or…
In the Third Circuit, an employer’s honest belief that an employee committed misconduct can now serve as a defense to a retaliation claim under the FMLA. With the recent decision in Capps v. Mondelez Global, LLC (found here) the Third Circuit joins the Seventh, Eighth and Tenth Circuits in providing such a defense.
In…
