In the past year, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) has seen 7.2 % in discrimination claims being filed with agency.  Coverage here.  The EEOC handles charges under Title VII, the ADA, the ADEA, the Equal Pay Act, and GINA.  EEOC Chair Jacqueline A. Berrien stated, “Discrimination continues to be a substantial problem for too many job seekers and workers, and we must continue to build our capacity to enforce the laws that ensure that workplaces are free of unlawful bias.”  Detailed statistics on the charges filed with the EEOC are available on its website.  The numbers show marked increases in charges involving disability discrimination and all types of retaliation.

And, in other interesting EEOC news, the EEOC recently brought a lawsuit against Kaplan Higher Education Corporation, accusing it of discriminating against black job applicants through the way it uses credit histories in its hiring process.  The EEOC alleges that Kaplan’s rejection of job applicants based on their credit history has “disparate impact” on black applicants.

Categories: General News Tags: ADA, ADEA, Credit History, Disability Discrimination, Disparate Impact, EEOC, Equal Pay Act, GINA, Labor and Employment, Retaliation, Title VII

On May 24, the Supreme Court issued two employment-related opinions.  The first, Lewis v. Chicago, concerned the filing deadline for disparate impact discrimination cases under Title VII.  The black firefighter plaintiffs in the case sought to challenge a written test used for determining promotions.  The question is whether their statute of limitations began running when the test was scored, or when the test results were actually used to determine promotion decisions.  Reversing the Seventh Circuit, the Court unanimously held (Scalia writing) that it was the latter because it was the use of the test results that could constitute an “employment practice” challengable under Title VII.  The case likely will return to the trial court, where the plaintiffs had originally won before the appeals.  Additional coverage is here.

The second case, Hardt v. Reliance Standard Life Insurance Co., concerns when plaintiffs in ERISA actions can receive attorneys’ fees for succeeding in their case.  ERISA (Employee Retirement Income Security Act) is the statue that governs employee benefits plans.  In this case, the plaintiff challenged the insurance company’s denial of her long-term disability benefits, and after a court found she would likely prevail, the insurance company awarded her the benefits.

In a nearly unanimous opinion (Thomas writing) reversing the Fourth Circuit, the Court held that a party who seeks to recover attorney’s fees in an ERISA case does not need to be a “prevailing party.”  Instead, a court may award fees and costs under the statute if the claimant has achieved “some degree of success on the merits.”  Thus, the trial court here was correct in awarding the plaintiff attorneys’ fees for basically succeeding in obtaining her benefits.  More coverage here and here.

Categories: Judicial Decisions Tags: Attorney Fees, Case Commentary, Disparate Impact, ERISA, Fourth Circuit, Labor and Employment, Long-term Disability Benefits, Racial Discrimination, Statute of Limitations, Title VII, US Supreme Court