The Rocky Mountain Employer

In the wake of heightened focus on sexual harassment in the workplace, employers may find it more difficult to have even weak harassment cases dismissed before trial. This proved to be the case in Minarsky v. Susquehanna County, where a federal appeals court ruled that an employee’s failure to utilize her employer’s harassment reporting procedures was reasonable and did not prevent the employer from potentially being liable for years’-long harassment.

The U.S. Supreme Court will consider whether federal courts have the power to review claims brought under Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act (“Title VII”) if the plaintiff did not first file a charge of discrimination with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) or an equivalent state agency.

In a unanimous opinion, the U.S. Supreme Court held this week that where an agreement gives an arbitrator authority to decide what disputes must be arbitrated, courts may not refuse to send a case to arbitration even if it is clear from the terms of the contract that the request to arbitrate is “wholly groundless.”

Colorado’s 2019 Legislative Session begins January 4, 2019, and, with a new Democratic governor and the Democratic party controlling both chambers of the General Assembly, we expect to see the introduction of numerous workplace and arbitration related bills with potentially far-reaching, and onerous, effects on employers. The following bills, which failed in previous years, likely will be the focus of serious debate between now and late May 2019, when the legislative session is scheduled to end:

The partial government shutdown, which began December 22, 2018 and has caused hundreds of thousands of federal workers to stop working or work without pay, has begun to affect private employers who are not government contractors, and employees of such companies, in the following ways:

This week, the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the denial of a preliminary injunction in a case challenging the legality of public sector unions.

Campbell Litigation and the Rocky Mountain Employer wish you a happy and safe Thanksgiving. We will resume postings next Thursday, November 29, 2018.

The Kentucky Supreme Court has ruled that employers in that state may not require employees to sign an employment arbitration agreement as a condition of employment, as such a condition violates state law.

The United States Supreme Court ruled that federal Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967 (“ADEA”) prohibits age discrimination against all state and local government employees, no matter the size of their employer. The ADEA expressly applies only to private employers with 20 or more employees, but is silent as to whether it applies to all public employers, regardless of size. The unanimous decision in Mount Lemmon Fire District v. Guido settles a split among federal appellate courts as to whether the ADEA applies only to public employers with 20 or more employees.

Plaintiffs bringing failure-to-accommodate claims under the Americans With Disabilities Act (“ADA”) must prove they suffered an adverse employment action such as a termination, demotion, or decrease in pay, under a recent Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals decision.

The United States Supreme Court’s 2018-2019 session is underway and the employment cases on its docket may have a significant impact on employers, particularly regarding employment arbitration agreements.

Colorado employers should prepare for an increase in the state minimum wage from $10.20 to $11.10, per hour, and from $7.18 to $8.08 per hour for tipped employees, effective January 1, 2019. The increase comes as a result of Amendment 70, under which Colorado’s minimum wage increases annually by $.90 until it reaches $12.00 per hour in 2020.

The National Labor Relations Board (“NLRB”) has proposed a joint employer rule change that would upend a controversial Obama-era decision that drastically expanded who can be subject to liability for unfair labor practices and deemed an essential party for collective bargaining. The NLRB’s proposed rule reinstates the “traditional test,” whereby an employer may be considered a joint employer of another employer’s employees only if it possesses and actually exercises substantial direct and immediate control over the employees’ essential terms and conditions of employment.

As guidance to the U.S. Department of Labor (“DOL”) in its efforts to determine how best to increase the minimum salary for the White Collar Overtime Exemptions, a large gathering of employee and employer advocates from the Rocky Mountain region told the DOL to increase the current annual $23,660.00 salary threshold modestly over a period of several years, at the DOL Listening Session held in Denver on September 14, 2018. Campbell Litigation attended the Session and provides the following summary of participants’ responses to the following questions: