March Madness, the annual NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament, is a significant event for basketball fans worldwide. But it’s also a time of year when employers may face some challenges in terms of employment law. Productivity can take a hit with millions of employees tuning into the games. Employees may request time off or engage in other behaviors that can pose legal risks for employers.

In this blog post, we’ll explore some employment law issues employers may face during March Madness and ways to handle them legally.Continue Reading March Madness Mayhem: Navigating Employment Law Issues in the Workplace

The COVID-19 pandemic has driven even more commerce to online platforms and away from brick-and-mortar stores. This shift is likely to amplify litigation regarding website compliance under the Americans with Disabilities Act (the “ADA”).

Drive-By Litigation

The ADA was originally put in motion to provide equal access to physical locations and services. It generally requires establishments to provide people with disabilities easy access to a business. In recent years, the ADA has been interpreted to include websites. The ultimate goal of the ADA is to eliminate exclusivity and offer an equal experience to all people. Thus, the logic goes, businesses should be inviting to everybody via physical location and website.

Plaintiff attorneys have developed a cottage industry over the last several years by filing thousands of lawsuits alleging that company websites are not accessible to the blind or visually impaired. In 2016 there were 262 website accessibility cases; by 2019 that number had risen to 2235. Often the same disabled individual (with the same attorney) will file these claims. They seek an injunction to make the company’s website ADA accessible and attorneys’ fees. Florida is a breeding ground for this drive-by litigation, and while the original targets were often large corporations, plaintiffs have moved on to small, locally-owned businesses.

What constitutes an ADA-compliant website?

Continue Reading Your business website might get you sued

It has long been settled that mistreatment based prohibited characteristics (such as race or sex) is actionable under Title VII even without a tangible employment action – e.g., termination, demotion, or pay cut. These are often referred to as hostile-environment claims. A hostile-environment claim under Title VII requires evidence of mistreatment that is sufficiently severe or persuasive that it can be said to alter the terms or conditions of employment. This measure is meant to draw a dividing line between trivial slights and substantial discrimination.

Nearly a decade ago, the Supreme Court clarified that mistreatment based on retaliation for protected conduct is likewise actionable under Title VII without a tangible employment action. However, the test is different. A retaliatory-hostile-environment claim is actionable when the mistreatment “well might have dissuaded a reasonable worker from making or supporting a charge of discrimination.” Burlington Northern & Santa Fe Railway Co. v. White, 548 U.S. 53, 57 (2006).

Accordingly, when dealing with hostile environment caused by retaliation, the court must ask if the mistreatment would have dissuaded a reasonable worker from making a claim of discrimination. When confronted with a hostile-environment-claim stemming from race or sex, the court must ask if the mistreatment was sufficiently severe or persuasive to alter the conditions employment.Continue Reading Eleventh Circuit Clarifies Standard for Retaliation Under Title VII

Henderson Franklin’s Employment Law and Workers’ Compensation teams invite business owners, HR professionals, in-house counsel and those wanting to stay up-to-date on issues impacting the workplace to attend the 28th Annual HR Law & Solutions Seminar on Thursday, March 26, 2020, at the Marriott Sanibel Harbour Resort & Spa in Fort Myers, Florida. For more details, please click here to view or download the seminar brochure.

The day will kick-off with registration and a continental breakfast at 7:15 a.m. sponsored by Sanibel Captiva Community Bank. After the morning session, attendees will enjoy a plated lunch, sponsored by BKS-Partners, and conclude around 3:00 pm after an incredible inspiring session delivered by former US Black Hawk Helicopter Pilot, Elizabeth McCormick, sponsored by Contemporary Business Resources. Topics and speakers include:

A Day in the Life: Practical Tips for Today’s Employers

Continue Reading Registration for Henderson Franklin’s 28th Annual HR Law & Solutions Seminar is Open

The Americans with Disabilities Act (the “ADA”) has been a tremendous source of litigation since its passage nearly thirty years ago. The ADA was originally put in motion to provide equal access to physical locations and services. It generally requires establishments to provide people with disabilities easy access to a business. But in 2016, the ADA began to include websites. The ultimate goal of the ADA is to eliminate exclusivity and offer an equal experience to all people. Thus, the logic goes, businesses should be inviting to everybody via physical location and website.

Over the past year, plaintiff attorneys have developed a cottage industry by filing thousands of lawsuits alleging that company websites are not accessible to the blind or visually impaired. From 2017-18, lawsuits targeting website compliance have increased by 177%, with more than 2,000 filed in 2018. Often times the same disabled individual (with the same attorney) will file these claims. They seek an injunction to make the company’s website ADA accessible and attorneys’ fees. A nominal settlement will quickly follow (typically a few thousand dollars) with the vast majority of this going to the attorney. Florida is a breeding ground for this drive-by litigation, and it is frustrating the federal courts. See Price v. Escalante – Black Diamond Golf Club LLC, No. 5:19-CV-22-OC-30PRL, 2019 WL 1905865, at *1 (M.D. Fla. Apr. 29, 2019).

Lack of Guidance

Continue Reading The Latest ADA Shakedown: Website Compliance

Title VII Requires Administrative Exhaustion

Before an employee alleging employment discrimination under Title VII may file a lawsuit in federal court, she must first exhaust administrative remedies by bringing formal charges with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) or an equivalent state agency. This administrative-exhaustion process is designed to allow the EEOC to step in, and also gives the parties an opportunity at early settlement. If the EEOC decides not to take the case, it must issue a “right-to-sue letter,” which is evidence that the administrative exhaustion requirement has been satisfied. The employee then has 90 days to file suit.

There has long been a circuit split on how to treat discrimination claims that were never raised with the EEOC but later find their way into a plaintiff’s lawsuit. Several appeals courts treated this failure as an affirmative defense that could be waived by the employer if not timely asserted. The competing approach was to treat administrative exhaustion as a jurisdictional requirement. Meaning the defense could not be waived, thereby permitting employers (and the court) to raise the issue at any time. Prior to the Supreme Court weighing in the on the matter, the Eleventh Circuit fell into the latter camp. See, e.g., Bloodworth v. Colvin, 17 F. Supp. 3d 1245, 1250 (N.D. Ga. 2014) (“[I]n the Eleventh Circuit, administrative exhaustion is a jurisdictional prerequisite to Title VII actions.”) (citing Crawford v. Babbitt, 186 F.3d 1322, 1326 (11th Cir.1999)).

Background – Fort Bend County v. Davis, No. 18-525

Continue Reading Supreme Court Decides Important Procedural Question under Title VII

Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 forbids employment discrimination based on “sex.” Most federal courts have interpreted Title VII to exclude sexual orientation discrimination. The Eleventh Circuit falls into this camp. Since its predecessor’s 1979 decision in Blum v. Gulf Oil Corp., 597 F.2d 936, 937 (5th Cir. 1979), the Eleventh Circuit has steadfastly held to its view that “discharge for homosexuality is not prohibited.” Id. The rationale being that Title VII speaks only of a person’s sex and not sexual orientation. Against this textual backdrop, it is the legislature’s job to extend Title VII if it sees fit. See Evans v. Georgia Reg’l Hosp., 850 F.3d 1248, 1256 (11th Cir. 2017) (discussing view that sexual orientation is not a cognizable claim under Title VII.

Circuit SplitContinue Reading Supreme Court to Settle Dispute on LGBT Bias in the Workplace

A plaintiff asserting a discrimination claim under Title VII must make a preliminary showing that her claims have merit. She can do so in a variety of ways, one of which is by navigating the familiar burden-shifting framework established by the Supreme Court in McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. Green, 411 U.S. 792 (1973).

Under that framework, the plaintiff bears the initial burden of establishing a prima facie case of discrimination by proving, among other things, that she was treated differently from another “similarly situated” individual. The Eleventh Circuit has long grappled with the question of just how “similarly situated” a plaintiff and her comparators must be – waffling between a standard of  “nearly identical” and “same or similar.”

This confusion came to an end last week in Lewis v. City of Union City, Ga., No. 15-11362 (11th Cir. Mar. 21, 2019), when the Eleventh Circuit sitting en banc held that a plaintiff must demonstrate she and the comparators are “similarly situated in all material respects.” Although the nomenclature is new, the court’s analysis of this standard is a win for employers. As the dissenting judges proclaimed,

[t]oday, the Majority Opinion drops an anvil on the employer’s side of the balance.”

The Facts

Continue Reading Eleventh Circuit Clarifies the Test for Comparator Evidence under McDonnell Douglas

Dan Schwartz of the Connecticut Employment Law blog posted yesterday about an interesting medical marijuana case in Connecticut. For the first time, a Connecticut court ruled that an employer could not refuse to hire an applicant simply because she was a medical marijuana user, despite the employer’s drug-free workplace program. This applicant, who used medical marijuana for PTSD, had her offer revoked after she tested positive for marijuana on the pre-employment drug screen. She then sued for discrimination. In ruling for the applicant, the court focused on the anti-discrimination provision in Connecticut’s medical marijuana law:

[U]nless required by federal law or required to obtain funding: . . . (3) No employer may refuse to hire a person or may discharge, penalize or threaten an employee solely on the basis of such person’s or employee’s status as a qualifying patient or primary caregiver under sections 21a-408 to 21a-408n, inclusive. Nothing in this subdivision shall restrict an employer’s ability to prohibit the use of intoxicating substances during work hours or restrict an employer’s ability to discipline an employee for being under the influence of intoxicating substances during work hours.

Conn. Gen. Stat. § 21a-408p(b)(3) (emphasis added).

Does this decision have any impact on Florida employers?

Continue Reading Connecticut Court Finds Employer Discriminated for Refusing to Hire Medical Marijuana User: What Does This Mean for Florida Employers?

Over the next few weeks, we will be sharing guest posts from our member firms with the Florida Law Alliance, who will be producing an employment law conference on November 10, 2017, at the Sonesta Fort Lauderdale Beach Hotel.

Today’s post is from Craig Salner, a partner at the Clarke Silverglate law firm in Miami:

Most South Florida practitioners are familiar with the barrage of recent lawsuits against places of public accommodation challenging their equal accessibility for the disabled. The Americans with Disabilities Act (“ADA”), a statute more known for its ban on disability discrimination in the workplace, has a section known as “Title III” which requires places of public accommodation to provide equal access to persons with disabilities. ADA Title III requirements typically have been applied to components of a business’s physical structure – appropriate linking of the parking lot to the adjacent sidewalk, sufficient main floor space for a wheelchair-bound patron to ambulate between and around aisles, bathrooms with sufficient space to maneuver with reachable soap and paper dispensers, etc.

Successful ADA Title III litigants are entitled to injunctive relief (i.e., the accessibility flaws must be remedied) plus attorney’s fees. Despite the lack of monetary damages available to litigants, ADA Title III litigation has spiked in South Florida with the emergence of certain serial “tester” plaintiffs – specific individuals claiming to test places of public accommodation for ADA Title III compliance and suing in instances of alleged non-compliance. Title III ADA lawsuits have nearly tripled nationwide in the last three years, rising from 2,722 in 2013 to 6,601 in 2016, including a 37 percent increase from 2015 to 2016. Florida is second only to California in the number of 2016 filings.

Are Internet websites places of public accommodation covered by Title III of the ADA?

Continue Reading Company Websites Under Attack – ADA Title III Expanding to the Internet