'International Clients': Beware!
If you represent globetrotting clients, be careful! Your married "international" clients who may one day be divorced may face great financial dangers ' or alternatively enjoy significant financial opportunities ' as they travel to and live in different countries.
American Child, Foreign Mother
The courts generally favor keeping children who are American citizens in the United States when deciding custody issues. But, this hurdle is not insurmountable for the foreign-national parent.
A Word to the Wise
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.
Supreme Court Rejects Reverse Age Discrimination Claim
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).
Arbitration and Delay
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!
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>.
