May 3rd, 2008 
James PetersThis is my second post in our multi-part series on “family status” discrimination, which is becoming more and more common under both federal and state law.
There are many ways family status discrimination can happen in the workplace, some of which are very subtle and difficult to prove. Other types are not subtle at all, such as the topic of today’s post, which is what I call “Moral Stereotyping”… Continue reading
April 16th, 2008 James PetersOne employment law claim that has been quickly becoming more popular these days is “family status discrimination”. That is, discriminating against someone based on their familial obligations or simply because they have a family in the first place.
Widespread use of this claim is so recent that it does not even have a consistent name in legal circles. We call it “family status discrimination”, but others call it “family… Continue reading
January 25th, 2008 James PetersA timely study by the Institute for Corporate Productivity (I4CP) that was released on Tuesday finds that the vast majority of corporations have some sort of formal anti-discrimination policy.
However, failure to adequately communicate such policies is a frequent problem, where only 80% of those companies rate anti-discrimination training “either somewhat or very important”.
This study is certainly timely in the debate over Tribune company’s hopelessly… Continue reading
January 12th, 2008 James PetersLet me first say that I rarely disagree with decisions by California state or federal appellate courts (at least those I am not personally involved in and therefore biased against). However, I occasionally come across a case where I just think the court got it wrong. In Mokler v. County of Orange, et.al. (Cal.App.Dist.4 11/26/2007), No. G036029, a former Orange County employee sued under several different claims, including sexual… Continue reading
November 20th, 2007 James PetersAccording to an article in today’s Los Angeles Times, Congressional Republicans are pushing to amend federal anti-discrimination laws to do away with the provision that prohibits employers from requiring employees to only speak English at work.
Currently, under Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act such an “English-only” policy is considered national origin discrimination. There is a “business necessity” exception to this rule where speaking English is necessary to… Continue reading
March 5th, 2007 James PetersEmployers could avoid a LOT of lawsuits if they would just follow the “No Bad Apples Rule”, which has its origins in a book written by Dr. Robert Sutton called “The No Asshole Rule: Building a Civilized Workplace and Surviving One That Isn’t”. I agree with Dr. Sutton that “bad apples” probably is not a strong enough word… Continue reading
January 5th, 2007 James PetersMy boss is a real jerk. She harasses me for no good reason, calls me names and belittles me in front of other employees. Today I finally told her not to treat me like that anymore, because it interferes with my work and it is unprofessional. She fired me on the spot for complaining. Please tell me this is not legal in California!… Continue reading
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