KMK Law Management Rights Blog

In this new podcast episode, recent cases and news from the world of Labor & Employment Law will be discussed, including:

Religious Accommodations:  Does an employer have to accommodate an employee who cannot work on Sundays and what constitutes an undue hardship. The Third Circuit considered these issues in Groff v. DeJoy.

Berling v. Gravity Diagnostics: In this recent Kentucky case, a jury awarded an employee over $450,000 when his employer ignored his request that it forego giving him a birthday party due to the employee’s panic disorder and later terminated his employment.

When I think of Abercrombie & Fitch, which is an infrequent occurrence, I think of soft core porn catalogues and over-priced t-shirts; now, I can add religious discrimination to the list.  The Supreme Court ruled this week against Abercrombie & Fitch for refusing to hire a young Muslim because she wore a hijab, which violated the store’s “look policy” for salespersons. 

The recently released 2012 EEOC enforcement statistics indicated an overall decrease in charges and increase in damages paid by employers.  Notably, for the second consecutive year, the EEOC reduced its pending inventory of private sector charges by 10% from fiscal year 2011, bringing inventory to 70,312.  However, the EEOC obtained the largest amount of monetary recovery in 2012, totaling $365.4 million.  Leading the states in originating charges was Texas at 9.0% of charges filed nationally, followed by Florida (8.0%) and California (7.4%).