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This post was contributed by Christopher Gibson, a Summer Associate with McNees Wallace and Nurick LLC.  Mr. Gibson will begin his third year of law school at Wake Forest in the fall, and he expects to earn his J.D. in May 2012. 

With unemployment in the United States hovering around 9.2%, human resources offices across the country are being bombarded with job applications like never before. The overworked employees of these often understaffed offices are charged with wading through a figurative sea of applications, all while dealing with the increasingly zany behavior of some applicants. According to CBS News, "[o]ne man sent a shoe to his prospective employer with a note that read, ‘I want to get my foot in the door.’ " Another "handed out personalized coffee cups, so no one would forget his name." In this high stress environment, some human resources professionals might see using social media as a quick and easy way of separating the wheat from the chaff – narrowing the field of possible applicants significantly in a short amount of time. But before signing into Facebook or pulling up your favorite search engine, keep in mind the immortal words of Clint Eastwood in Dirty Harry: "You feelin’ lucky?"

Every human resources staff member knows that, especially when interviewing a potential new employee, some topics are strictly off limits. Asking one of these "off limits" questions can put your company at serious risk of being sued for discrimination. The trouble is, by resorting to the use of social media, this kind of "off limits" information can be collected from a potential employee even before his or her interview.

Imagine for a moment that you are the director of human resources for a mid-sized paper supply company. You receive around fifty resumes in response to a job posting to fill the position of "Assistant to the Regional Manager." One applicant – Alex Jackson – catches your eye as one of the top applicants for the job. According to Alex’s resume, Alex has been working in the paper industry for around six years and has a bachelor’s degree in management from a New York Ivy League school. Alex has been published in several trade magazines, is active in the community and has excellent references.

You decide to pull Alex’s Facebook profile just to get a better feel for the applicant; what’s the worst that could happen, right?

As you expected, what you find is fairly innocuous – Alex is a 42 year old Caucasian female who is very active in the Catholic church. She has recently married and has a one year old son. Two of her recent wall posts read, "Going out to happy hour for the fourth night in a row! Can’t stop, won’t stop!" and "Please pray for my mother as she recovers from her most recent bout with cancer." Eventually, your organization decides to go in another direction and Alex is not interviewed or hired for the job.

So again, what’s the worst that could happen?Continue Reading The Use of Social Media in Hiring Decisions: Tempting Fruit from a Poisonous Tree

On February 18, 2010, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) published a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) addressing the meaning of the “reasonable factors other than age” defense under the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA). The ADEA prohibits employers from discriminating against employees or job applicants based upon their age, but protects only those employees or applicants who are 40 years or older. In addition, the ADEA provides employers with statutory defenses, which include provisions for a “bona fide occupational qualification" defense and a “reasonable factors other than age” defense.

The “reasonable factors other than age” (RFOA) defense precludes liability for actions otherwise prohibited under the ADEA so long as the employment decision is based upon reasonable factors other than age. The EEOC’s NPRM takes into consideration two relatively recent United States Supreme Court cases, Smith v. City of Jackson and Meacham v. Knolls Atomic Power Laboratories, which each evaluated disparate impact claims under the ADEA. Disparate impact claims involve the allegation that an employer’s practice, although neutral on its face, has a discriminatory impact on a protected class – under the ADEA, workers aged 40 years or more. 

Specifically, and with the Supreme Court’s Smith and Meacham holdings in mind, the EEOC proposes to revise the federal regulations to illustrate that under the RFOA defense, the evaluation of an employer’s practice “turns on the facts and circumstances of each particular situation and whether the employer acted prudently in light of those facts.” Thus, the EEOC’s proposed approach attempts to balance employers’ rights to make reasonable business decisions with the ADEA’s goal of protecting older workers from facially neutral employment practices that disparately impact their employment. In addition, the proposed amendments provide guidance as to the factors that will be considered in evaluating an employer’s facially neutral practice under the ADEA.Continue Reading EEOC Issues Proposed Regulations Defining Employers’ Affirmative Defense Under ADEA

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…

The United States Supreme Court upheld a provision in a collective-bargaining agreement that clearly and unmistakably requires union members to arbitrate ADEA claims is enforceable as a matter of federal law. Accordingly, there is no legal basis for the Court to strike down an arbitration clause in a collective bargaining agreement, which was freely negotiated by…

Reductions in Force, Layoffs, Downsizing, Rightsizing or whatever you may call it is occurring with greater frequency as the economic conditions continue to deteriorate. The business objects are reducing costs, preserving talent, treating separated employee with compassion and avoiding litigation. The compassion and litigation avoidance may go hand in glove.

The most prevalent litigation avoidance strategy…

Employers offering severance payment to employees are typically uncertain about the payroll taxes that may apply to these additional payments. Severance pay is treated as “supplemental wages” because it is not a payment for services in the current payroll period but a payment made upon or after termination of employment for an employment relationship that has…

As the economic meltdown cascades through the financial, banking and related sectors, many employers are planning staff cuts.  Selecting employees for lay off must be collaboration between managers and human resources. HR must be able to influence the process to reduce legal risks and assuage the anxiety of remaining employees:

Establishing Business Justification and Layoff …