Posted on May 13th, 2009 by Tim Eavenson | 1 Comment »
Filed under: ., Discrimination, HR Issues | 
In the early days, Current Employment focused much of its attention on a stream of bizarre employment lawsuits and news stories that we’d constantly stumble across. (See, e.g., here, here and here.)
In fact, one of the chief inspirations for this blog was Gary Skoning‘s annual “Wacky Employment Cases” reports published in the National Law Journal.
For months, though, we’ve been busy with important legislation and constant economic changes that required seriousness and professionalism. That, and we had a complete lack of content. I can’t remember the last time a wacky story crossed my desk, and I was honestly starting to worry.
Then the ABA Journal drops a bomb like this:
The federal agency in charge of enforcing anti-discrimination laws has taken up the cause of a Texas strip club waitress allegedly illegally fired due to her age.
Some stories just write themselves.
According to the Houston Chronicle story cited by the Journal, 56-year-old Mary Brassi had worked for AHD Houston, which owned 5 area strip clubs (an impressive amount for any city), since 1993. She was earning near six figures waiting tables at a club called Cover Girls. She was popular with the customers. She sold a lot of drinks. But for all her success, according to the EEOC, she got called “old” by her bosses, and teased about menopause and Alzheimer’s. Then the club started bringing in “younger women” and giving them the prime shifts.
And then in 2006, they let her go. Just like that. Imagine – a 15-year veteran of the Houston live adult entertainment community, tossed out into the blaring sun and uncomfortable gravel parking lot like a best man who got too “handsy”. Wondering if she’d get to serve $13 bottles of beer to distracted drunk guys with expense accounts ever again.
Refusing to go down quietly, Brassi brought her case to the EEOC and the agency investigated. Last week, they filed suit on her behalf. And this, of course, is the moral of the story: it doesn’t matter who you are, or what your job is; you can always go to the EEOC for help. And it doesn’t matter what sort of business you’re in; if you employ people, the EEOC can always come knocking. That’s their job, after all.
Although, if recent events are any indication, the EEOC may be superseded by karma this time around. According to the Chronicle, Brassi (now 59) is waiting tables for a competitor.
As for Cover Girls? Burned to the ground. In 2007.
Posted on July 21st, 2008 by Tim Eavenson | No Comments »
Filed under: Discrimination, HR Issues |
(HT: LawMemo via Workplace Prof Blog)
In order to prove you have a disability in federal court, you generally have to be able to show 2 things (and this is obviously generalizing a lot):
1. You have some type of impairment.
2. That your impairment substantially limits a ‘major life activity’.
Of course, the laws governing disability discrimination neglect to define either of these terms, which means courts have, over the years, had a lot of fun with them. Especially that second requirement.
As it stands right now, breathing, eating, walking, lifting, caring for ones self all count as “major life activities.” AIDS is a disability for straight women, because it impairs the major life activity of reproduction, but not for gay men, because it doesn’t impair anything but remaining alive, which, interestingly, is not a major life activity. Working is (usually) a major life activity, but working more than 40 hours a week generally isn’t. (How one lawyer convinced a bunch of other lawyers of that is a total mystery to me.) In one case involving a mentally handicapped Wal-Mart applicant, the 11th Circuit said they weren’t sure if “thinking, communicating and social interaction are ‘major life activities’ under the ADA.”
Last month, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals made headlines when it held that sleeping was a major life activity. Seriously.
Well, now the D.C. Circuit has done it again: Having sex, apparently, is a major life activity. In Adams v. Rice, the court noted that a woman recovering from cancer, whose symptoms and treatments were messing with her sex life had a valid disability.
All this confusion over what constitutes a disability may be “cleared up” by an amendment before Congress right now, which would define the definition to include anything that “materially restricts” a “major bodily function.” The amendment’s proponents think this language would encompass things like AIDS and cancer automatically. I wonder if we’re just giving the courts two more phrases to ponder over.
Back to sex in D.C. – One of the judges issued a dissent – not arguing that sex isn’t a MLA, thank God – but rather saying that the plaintiff didn’t show any interference with her sex life until long after the alleged discrimination took place. This is quite interesting, and is a sub-issue that will probably outlast any amendment made to the ADA.
Either way, an appellate court has once again explained something most of us took for granted. Employment law is such a great lens through which to view the difference between the judicial system and real life.
Posted on April 11th, 2008 by Tim Eavenson | No Comments »
Filed under: Uncategorized |
One video shows Wal-Mart founder Sam Walton telling the board of directors in the 1980s that too few women were in management. Another shows Chief Executive Officer H. Lee Scott Jr. discussing sexual harassment cases in 1999, the Wall Street Journal reports. ABC News has posted the Walton video clip along with one of a Wal-Mart lawyer calling unions “blood-sucking parasites.”
Also, there’s tons of video of the execs dressed in drag. Seriously. You think lead counsel in the myriad discrimination cases Wal Mart is fielding are interested?
I’m sure you’re asking why Wal Mart would let them do this, since they would have to have signed some type of contract restricting internal meeting video’s usage.
Company founder Mike Flagler maintains Wal-Mart has no rights to the videos because it did not sign a contract restricting their use.
Nice work. Somebody in the counsel’s office is getting the boot on that one.
Flagler’s co-owner Mary Lyn Villaneuva says Wal-Mart has offered to buy the video library for $500,000. Six figs? When every lawyer in the country is going to pay to watch these things? I think
Kim Kardashian ponied up more than that.
Here’s the link to the video from ABC News. Let me warn you – it is not for the faint of heart.
