Arbitration and Delay
March 03, 2004
Arbitration often is lauded as a relatively more economical and expeditious means to resolve employment disputes. In many cases, arbitration does achieve these objectives. However, when arbitrators issue significant punitive damage awards, employers may not be content to accept the award as final and binding.
You Be the Judge!
March 03, 2004
To prevail on a hostile work environment claim, a plaintiff must prove that the workplace was permeated with discriminatory intimidation that was "sufficiently severe or pervasive to alter the conditions" of employment. <i>Meritor Savings Bank FSB v. Vinson</i>, 477 U.S. 57, 106 S.Ct. 2399 (1986) An objectionable environment must be "both objectively and subjectively offensive, one that a reasonable person would find hostile and abusive, and one that the victim in fact did perceive to be so." <i>Faragher v. City of Boca Raton</i>, 524 U.S.775, 118 S.Ct. 2275, 2283 (1998). Courts must examine the totality of the circumstances in deciding whether a hostile environment exists. <i>Id</i>.
Supreme Court Rejects Reverse Age Discrimination Claim
March 03, 2004
By a 6-3 majority, the United States Supreme Court rejected a claim of reverse discrimination under the Age Discrimination in Employment Act, finding that Congress in enacting the ADEA concluded that the "enemy of 40 is 30, not 50." <i>General Dynamics v. Cline</i>, 2004 WL 329956 (U.S. 2/24/04).
A Word to the Wise
March 03, 2004
Many major employers have adopted internal dispute resolution programs designed to resolve internally employment disputes, and the numbers of such programs are only increasing. In prior years, these programs typically included a mediation step and ended in a final step of binding arbitration. Under such programs, employees were barred from opting out of the program to bring their claims in court. This is still the case with many employer dispute resolution programs. A growing number of employers, however, have moved away from this binding arbitration model and instead have provided employees with the option of opting out of the program after the mediation stage and permitting the employee to take his or her claim to court.
Spam At Work Gets Another Look
February 09, 2004
In our August 2003 issue, Jay Waks and Joshua Abraham reviewed the issue of workplace spam in their article entitled "A New York Perspective on Workplace Spam." Messrs. Waks and Abraham addressed in detail the controversial California Supreme Court decision on the topic that held that an employer had failed to satisfy the harm element in a trespass to chattel action where its former employee "spammed" it with 175,000 emails. <i>Intel Corp. v. Hamidi</i>, 30 Cal.4th 1342 (2003). A New York trial court recently revisited the employee spam issue in the post-Intel landscape. <i>School of Visual Arts v. Kuprewicz</i>, Index No. 115172-03, (Sup. Ct. N.Y. Co. 12/22/03) (Richter, J.). The court's ruling affirms the validity of the Waks-Abraham view of the state on New York law on the troubling topic of workplace spam.
Update: Danger to Unsuccessful Employment Discrimination Plaintiffs
February 09, 2004
The September 2003 issue of <i>New York Employment Law & Practice</i> published my article entitled "Be Wary of Rule 54(d)'s Costs Provision," in which I discussed the award of costs to prevailing defendant employers in employment law cases. I observed that courts have often assessed substantial costs awards against even low-income plaintiffs whose employment law cases are dismissed or lost at trial, although there are arguments available to plaintiffs' counsel in some situations that can be used to minimize or eliminate such awards. A January 2004 decision on a costs motion by Eastern District of New York Judge Arthur D. Spatt reinforces several of the points made in the September article, and further dramatizes the dangers of potential costs awards to plaintiffs with marginal cases.
