Be careful what you post on social media sites on the internet because it may cost you your job. Recently, our New Jersey Appellate Division issued an opinion holding that neither the First Amendment nor Article I, paragraph 6 of the New Jersey Constitution prevents a private employer from terminating…
Our Appellate Division recently made clear it would not be receptive to sex based hostile work environment claims where it is established that the Plaintiff “gave as good as she got” while working in an environment rife with foulmouthed name calling and invectives. In Bouziotis v. Iron Bar, 2022 N.J.…
Retaliatory adverse employment actions are not only limited to termination. If an employer engages in a bad faith or a sham internal investigation against an employee after the employee blew the whistle about conduct, he or she reasonably believed violated the law, was fraudulent, or was contrary to public policy,…
The Family and Medical Leave Act (“FMLA”) allows eligible employees to take up to twelve (12) workweeks of leave in any twelve-month period if a “serious health condition . . . makes the employee unable to perform the functions of the position of such employee.” 29 U.S.C. § 2612(a)(1)(D). Therefore, it is unlawful for any employer to interfere with, restrain,…
New Jersey’s whistleblowing law is known as the Conscientious Employee Protection Act, N.J.S.A. 34:19-1 et seq. (“CEPA”). To prove a CEPA case, an employee must show that because they disclosed, objected, and/or or refused to participate in activities engaged in by their employer or their coworker(s) that they reasonably believed…
The Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (“ADA”) protects physically and mentally disabled employees from discrimination. Under the ADA, employers who fail to provide reasonable accommodations to people with disabilities may be found liable for discrimination. See Colwell v. Rite Aid Corp., 602 F.3d 495, 504-05 (3d Cir. 2010). As a…
Employment Arbitration Agreements typically force employees to resolve legal disputes with their employer through an opaque process controlled by a privately retained arbitrator, rather than publicly through our relatively transparent jury-based court system. These privately retained arbitrators often favor the large corporation employers who provide them repeat business as opposed…
Many mid-level to large companies use an attorney handbook or direct employees during the new hire onboarding process to an employee intranet site where the employer communicates its company philosophy, policies, procedures, behavioral expectations, and worker benefits. The question often raised by employees is whether the employer is legally bound…
A constructive discharge occurs when conditions at work become so unlawfully and intolerably hostile an employee is left with no choice but to resign. Previously, to recover under New Jersey’s Whistleblower Law – the Conscientious Employee Protection Act (CEPA) – a litigant was required to prove actual or constructive discharge.…
Victims of disability discrimination no longer need to shoulder the burden and high expense of retaining a pricey medical expert to come to court to render an opinion establishing their physical, mental and/or emotional disability in question; they can now use their treating doctor for this purpose. So said our…