Harassment

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Want to evaluate whether you need to improve your company’s sexual harassment and gender discrimination policies or get recommendations for potential improvements to those policies?  A company can spend tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars to engage a large law firm to study the company’s policies and make recommendations for improvement.  Alternatively, a company…

Effective September 1, 2021, a pair of bills passed by the Texas Legislature will expand the scope of employer liability for claims of sexual harassment.  The bill makes four important amendments to the Texas Commission on Human Rights Act (“Act”).

First the amendment defines what constitutes sexual harassment under state law.  Sexual harassment means an…

The #Metoo movement and high profile sexual harassment allegations involving prominent Americans has influenced provisions of the new tax reform law.  The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act signed by President Trump on December 20, 2017, limits the deductibility settlements paid on sexual harassment claims where the settlement agreement contains nondisclosure provisions.  Section 13307 of the…

Another legislative session ended with few changes affecting Texas employers on the labor and employment law front.  One bill that did become law is one that prohibits the sexual harassment of unpaid interns.  The law creates an offense if the employer’s agents or supervisors know or should have knowledge of conduct constituting sexual harassment was…

One thing often overlooked in conducting workplace investigations is reporting back to the complaining party at the end of the investigation. I have seen many cases where the employer conducted a thorough investigation and took prompt remediation action but never communicated to the employee that it had done so.  From the employee’s perspective, he or she…

The U.S. Supreme Court adopted an objective test for determining an employee’s Title VII “supervisory status” in Vance v. Ball State University. The question in Vance was what level of authority must an individual have to qualify as a “supervisor” for purposes of Title VII vicarious liability. This is an important issue because the employee’s status…

In an issue of first impression in this Fifth Circuit, the Court held that a volunteer firefighter making a Title VII claim of sexual harassment is not an “employee” for purposes of the statute and therefore had no legal claim.

The case arose from a suit filed by a former firefighter for the Livingston Parish…