The Eleventh Circuit handed the EEOC another recent defeat in U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission v. St. Joseph’s Hospital, Inc., No. 15-14551, 2016 WL 7131479 (11th Cir. Dec. 7, 2016). The case involved cross-appeals after a jury found that the defendant hospital had acted in good faith despite its failure to accommodate a disabled nurse…
Category: Employment Law and Employee Benefits
Native American Tribes Cannot Be Sued Under the ADEA
Native American tribes enjoy sovereign immunity from suit under the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (“ADEA”), 29 U.S.C. §§ 621-634. This was the holding of the Eleventh Circuit’s published opinion in Williams v. Poarch Band of Creek Indians, 2016 WL 6081345 (11th Cir. Oct. 18, 2016). This case clarifies principles of statutory interpretation and reaffirms the…
Eleventh Circuit Rules Against EEOC Finding Age Discrimination in Hiring Claims Cannot Be Based on Disparate Impact Theory
May a job applicant sue a prospective employer based on a policy that had an adverse and disproportionate effect on him because of his age? The Eleventh Circuit, in an en banc opinion published October 5, 2016, Villarreal v. R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co., Pinstripe, Inc., 2016 WL 5800001, ruled that only employees may bring a disparate impact claim…
Workplace Grooming Policy Against Dreadlocks Held Non-Discriminatory Under Title VII
Does enforcing a workplace policy against dreadlocks amount to intentional racial discrimination against a black or African American job applicant? Despite the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s endorsement of that theory, the Eleventh Circuit rejected its argument yesterday in EEOC v. Catastrophe Management Solutions (CMS), 2016 WL 4916851 (11th Cir. Sept. 15, 2016). The EEOC brought…
“Binding” External Benefit Determinations Might Not Bind Courts Under ERISA
Does ERISA preempt rules that give “binding” effect to benefit determinations made by a plan’s external review panel? Not as long as those determinations don’t actually bind courts, the Eleventh Circuit held in Alexandra H. v. Oxford Health Insurance Inc. Freedom Access Plan, 2016 WL 4361936 (11th Cir. Aug. 16, 2016). The plaintiff in the…
Paymaster Is Not a Joint Employer Under Title VII or the Equal Pay Act
Companies with complex corporate structures or contractor relationships frequently face the threat of joint-employer liability under federal employment law. Just this year, the U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division issued guidance expansively interpreting the joint-employer doctrine under the Fair Labor Standards Act (“FLSA”) and the Migrant and Seasonal Agricultural Worker Protection Act, with…