In recent months, one of the emerging issues within employment law has centered on whether groups of workers are employees or independent contractors. Recent cases from Georgia have focused on whether exotic dancers are independent contractors or employees of the clubs where they dance, with the dancers achieving a favorable…
An Alabama employee recently lost her Family Medical Leave Act case because the period for which she sought leave was after the last day of her temporary employment. The case, and the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals ruling in it, provides some helpful guidance to Georgia employers and employees when…
As an employer, investigating employee misconduct and assessing proper punishment to each employee involved in breaking the rules is often complicated. It is very important to complete this task carefully and meticulously, though, especially if one the employees involved is a member of a protected class. In the case of…
Two Georgia women, who lost their jobs and subsequently launched Title VII sex discrimination cases against their former employers, ultimately took their cases all the way to the federal 11th Circuit Court of Appeals to defend their positions. These two cases, one of which was decided in mid-January and one…
An Ohio man, who had a disability that affected his ability to stoop, bend, and twist, could not pursue an Americans With Disabilities Act case against the employer that terminated him. The law required the employee to show that the party that decided to terminate him knew about the disability. In this…
A woman who previously worked as an exotic dancer at an Athens club recently launched a class action lawsuit accusing her former employer of violating the Fair Labor Standards Act. According to the former employee, the club improperly withheld wages, overtime pay, and tips by improperly classifying her as an…
A Florida man should not have had his age discrimination case thrown out, even though both he and his replacement were both in their 40s. The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals decided to reverse a summary judgment in favor of the man’s employer, stating that an age discrimination case requires…
A North Georgia man’s claim that R.J. Reynolds’ hiring practices for sales manager jobs violated the Age Discrimination in Employment Act got new life as a result of a recent decision by the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals. The court decided that both employees and job applicants alike can pursue…
An employer’s obligation to comply with the Americans With Disabilities Act and refrain from discriminating against employees with disabilities places certain limitations on what an employer can and cannot do. One obligation an employer does not have under the law is to accommodate an employee if that accommodation would mean…
A pair of minority employees at a jail in Georgia lost the chance to go to trial on their claims that their employer committed racial discrimination and then retaliated against them when they filed formal complaints about the misconduct, due to their timing for suing their employer. The US District…