Our Blog: Workplace Discrimination

Happy New Year!  All of us at at the Firm took a couple of weeks off to enjoy our families and the holiday season.   We hope you did as well.

This first week of the year was looking a little light in workplace news until the end of the week when two interesting pieces of news dropped.

First, on Thursday the …

Read more ›

Biden to Sign Law Ending Mandatory Arbitration of Sexual Harassment Cases

Congress recently passed the “Ending Forced Arbitration of Sexual Assault and Sexual Harassment Act of 2021” (H.R. 4445).  This bill received increasingly rare bipartisan support and we expect President Biden to sign it into law any day.

Let’s take a quick look at what this law does and what it means …

Read more ›

We are excited to report that on July 6, 2019, Judge Rebecca Pallmeyer entered a judgment in favor of Case Law Firm client, Jessica Hernandez, and awarded her nearly $230,000 in damages stemming from her pregnancy discrimination claims against her former employer, the Katz Law Office.

To read more about the case and the Court’s decision to enter a judgment in …

Read more ›

Chicago Pride 2019 is done, wrapping up a month-long celebration marking the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall Riots. This year’s Pride drew in record numbers of an estimated 100,000 people from all over the world, coming together to celebrate being themselves. However, while crowds came out in droves to show their support of the LGBT community, it is still important …

Read more ›

Employees can be the first line of defense against workplace violence but only if they know what to look for and what to do about it.

On February 15 an employee at an Aurora, Illinois manufacturing plant walked into work believing he was going to be fired that day.  Those of us in the Chicagoland area know what happened after that–he …

Read more ›

The ADA turns 28 today.  

The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) was signed into law 28 years ago today by President George H.W. Bush.  (Remember when we used to have presidents who believed people with disabilities were worthy of respect and protection rather than ridicule?)

Since 1990 the Act has provided people with disabilities protections from discrimination at work and access …

Read more ›

As some of you may recall, in April of 2017, the Seventh Circuit issued a HUGELY important decision, ruling that a federal anti-discrimination statute prohibits sexual orientation discrimination in the workplace.  If you missed it or want to understand more fully how this decision helped create a workplace sexual orientation circuit split, take a look at our blog post on …

Read more ›

Given the horrible decision we reported on a couple of weeks ago, in which a district court shockingly ruled that termination because of menstruation was not unlawful discrimination, we thought it would be nice to report on a court that is getting things right.  A little antidote to the negative on this sunny Friday morning.  Specifically, the 11th Circuit Court …

Read more ›

I thought by now that we’d basically covered the bases in terms of unlawful, unfair, and unprofessional nonsense that women face in the workplace.  Between sexual harassment, the gender pay gap, pregnancy discrimination, and lack of statutorily mandated family leave policies, women face a lot of hurdles in their quest for professional advancement and financial security.  Unfortunately, this week, we …

Read more ›

The 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals is positioned to join the 7th Circuit in deciding that Title VII prohibits sexual orientation discrimination at work.

In April of this year,  the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals here in Chicago made history when it decided that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act prohibits sexual orientation discrimination.  See Kristin’s post to read more about …

Read more ›