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Fourth Circuit Reaffirms Scope of Retaliation Protections in Title VII Opinion

By Andrew Henson

In the recent opinion Strothers v. City of Laurel, Maryland, 895 F.3d 317, (4th Cir. 2018), the Fourth Circuit gave further articulation to the type of facts which can permit a retaliation claim under Title VII to survive summary judgment, particularly what can pass under the “severe or pervasive” prong of a complaint of hostile work environment which caused the subsequent retaliation. In that case, Strothers, a black woman, was hired as an administrative assistant to work for the City of Laurel, Maryland. Soon after her hiring, Strothers found herself subjected to meticulous scrutiny by Koubek, her white supervisor, who chided her about aspects of the dress code (including an allegation that she grabbed at Strothers’ pants), required reporting of bathroom breaks, and changed the time that Strothers needed to report to work from 9:05 a.m. to 8:55 a.m. and reported on Strothers for minor instances of tardiness. After Strothers made a complaint about the foregoing “harassment” she received from Koubek, she was terminated the following day.

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On Vaccinations, Religion and What Buddha Really Said

By Joseph S. Murray IV

As flu season begins, so begin the arguments over accommodations for hospital employees whose religious (or sincerely held nontheistic) beliefs prohibit them from taking the flu vaccine. Two recent court decisions should help medical providers and employees better understand the Title VII requirements for religious accommodations and its definition of religion.

Here in North Carolina, the EEOC sued Mission Hospital after Mission terminated three employees who failed to timely request religious accommodations under Mission Hospital’s mandatory vaccination policy. The vaccination policy required accommodation requests to be submitted by Sept. 1 but employees did not have to be vaccinated until Dec. 1. EEOC v. Mission Hosp., Inc., 2017 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 124183, *6 (W.D.N.C. Aug. 17, 2017). Further, Mission gave a grace period for vaccinations but not for requesting an accommodation. Id. at *9. The court denied Mission’s summary judgment motion since it found that a jury could find that Mission violated Title VII by treating individuals seeking religious accommodations differently based on the staggered deadlines and inconsistently applied grace period.[1]

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Damned If You Do: Supervisors Could Be At Risk For Reporting Sexual Harassment

By Michael A. Kornbluth and Joseph E. Hjelt

On June 7, 2017, Judges Traxler, Motz and Agee on the U.S. 4th Circuit Court of Appeals issued a decision which could make employees think twice before they report other individuals’ complaints of sexual harassment in the workplace. The facts of the case, Villa v. CavaMezze Grill, LLC, No. 15-2543, 2017 WL 2453254 (4th Cir. Jun. 7, 2017), are alleged as follows:

In October of 2013, Judy Bonilla, a former employee at Cava Mezze Grill in Merrifield, Va., told Patricia Villa, a low-level manager at Cava Mezze, that the restaurant’s General Manager had offered her a raise in exchange for sex. Villa then approached Rob Gresham, the restaurant chain’s Director of Operations, to report the conversation with Bonilla and convey her suspicions that the same quid pro quo offer had been made to another former employee. Gresham is close friends with the General Manager who was accused of sexual harassment. In investigating Villa’s report, Gresham interviewed Bonilla and the other individual Villa suspected had been offered a raise in exchange for sex. Sergio Valdiva, Area Manager, accompanied Gresham in the interview with Bonilla to serve as a translator. In their interviews with Gresham and Valdiva, both employees denied the allegations and denied having ever said anything to Villa. At the close of the investigation, Gresham fired Villa, telling her that he concluded that she fabricated the story.

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Section 1557 Of the ACA, Association Discrimination, and Health Insurance Coverage For an Employee’s Dependent With Gender Dysphoria

By Joseph S. Murray IV

The regulations implementing Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act (“ACA”) prohibit covered health insurance providers from discriminating against individuals based on gender identity (which is defined as sex discrimination) and require covered entities to treat individuals in accordance with their gender identity. 42 U.S.C. § 18116 & 45 C.F.R. § 92 et seq. Based on these requirements, covered health benefit plans cannot limit or exclude medical services related to gender dysphoria and gender transition. Employees and their covered dependents can directly sue employers and benefit plans to enforce the Section 1557 non-discrimination provisions.[1]

But what if Section 1557 does not apply to an employee’s health benefit plan? Can employees use association discrimination claims to require their employers’ health benefit plans to cover gender transition surgery and related medical treatments for the employees’ dependents?[2] In a recent case, the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the dismissal of an employee’s Title VII association discrimination claim since such claims are based on the employee’s own protected status.

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Seventh Circuit Finds That Sex Discrimination Includes Sexual Orientation

Labor & Employment Law Section

By Sean F. Herrmann

Practitioners in our field have grown accustomed to seeing others’ dismay as they discover that Title VII does not bar sexual orientation discrimination. “That can’t be true—it’s 2017!” For decades, the prevailing belief, and reality, was that employers could discriminate against employees on the basis of their sexual orientations with relative impunity and the wronged employees would generally have no legal recourse. Hardened employment lawyers got used to this, but for most people this situation was nearly impossible to comprehend.

That common-sense disbelief has finally led somewhere. On April 4, 2017, the full 7th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals, in an 8-3 decision, ruled that sex discrimination extends to sexual orientation. The case is Hively v. Ivy Tech Community College of Indiana, No. 15-1720, (7th Cir. Apr. 4, 2017) (https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/3536022/Hively-Opinion.pdf_) and we should get to know it.

Kimberly Hively, the plaintiff-appellant, was a part-time, adjunct professor at Ivy Tech Community College. She was, as the court put it, “openly lesbian.” Hively applied for six full-time positions and received none of them. Ivy Tech eventually decided not to renew her existing contract. Without the assistance of counsel, Hively filed an EEOC Charge that bluntly stated, “I believe I am being discriminated against based on my sexual orientation. I believe I have been discriminated against and that my rights under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 were violated.”

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EEOC Wants In On NLRB’s Fun: EEOC Focuses On Waivers, Releases and Arbitration Agreements

By Joseph S. Murray IV

For the past couple of years, the nonunion employment bar has watched as the National Labor Relations Board upended the law surrounding handbooks, waivers, arbitration agreements and a host of other aspects of the employment relationships. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, apparently not content to allow the NLRB to have all of the fun, has stepped up the use of its authority to attack separation and employment agreements.

In EEOC v. CVS Pharm., Inc., 809 F.3d 335 (7th Cir. 2015), the EEOC contended that CVS’ standard severance agreement constituted a pattern and practice of resistance to the full enjoyment of rights in violation of Section 707(a) of Title VII (42 U.S.C. § 2000e-6). The EEOC pointed to seven specific clauses it believed violated Title VII. EEOC v. CVS Pharm., Inc. Cmplt. ¶ 8.a.–f. (last visited Dec. 6, 2016). The EEOC contended the clauses each contained language that interfered with an employee’s right to file a charge with the EEOC or to participate in an EEOC investigation.

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EEOC v. Catastrophe Management Solutions: Title VII Does Not Prohibit Race Discrimination Based On Mutable Characteristics

Murray,JoeJoseph S. Murray IV

In the 50 years since Congress enacted Title VII, scientists, contemporary thinkers, and society in general have reassessed the concept of race. No longer do we view race solely in terms of biology (immutable characteristics). We now understand that race includes social context, culture, and life experiences (mutable characteristics). While society’s understanding of race has changed, Title VII’s original definition — or lack thereof — remains stuck in 1964. Whether a racial characteristic is mutable or immutable matters, as the Court of Appeals for the United States Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit recently reminded the EEOC: Title VII only protects against discrimination based on immutable characteristics. EEOC v. Catastrophe Mgmt. Solutions, No. 14-13482, 2016 U.S. App. LEXIS 16918 (11th Cir. Sep. 15, 2016).

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