Employers with an eye to the regulatory horizon are aware that the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) has proposed expanding its annual Employer Information Report (EEO-1) to include data on employees’ pay.

The existing EEO-1 requires private employers with 100 or more employees to report the number of employees within 10 job categories by seven race and ethnicity categories, as well as by sex.

The proposed changes will further refine reporting to include employee counts as well as total hours worked by 12 pay bands.

• Discrimination
• Equal Pay

The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission scored a victory last week against PMT Corp., a Minnesota-based medical device and equipment manufacturer. According to the commission’s complaint filed nearly two years ago, PMT Corp. engaged in systematic discriminatory hiring practices by refusing to hire women and individuals over the age of 40 in violation of Title VII and the Age Discrimination in Employment Act. According to Law 360, PMT agreed to settle the suit for $1.02 million payable to a class of applicants and a former PMT Human Resources professional who brought the company’s hiring practices to the EEOC’s attention.

• Age Discrimination
• Civil Litigation
• Discrimination
• The Inbox

When employees and employers are approaching the end of an employment relationship, they should consider their existing rights and how their conduct may impact those rights. A recent decision from the Minnesota Court of Appeals demonstrates how one hasty email can change everything.

Beginning on January 1, 2010, LifeSpan of Minnesota, Inc. employed the plaintiff in the case, Mark Sharockman, as its chief financial officer and executive vice president. Mr. Sharockman’s three-year employment agreement with LifeSpan provided, among other things, that he would receive annual pay increases that were at least equal to the average pay increases granted to the other two executive officers.

• Breach of Contract
• Civil Litigation
• Executive Compensation
• Termination With or Without Cause

In our last post, we discussed the case of Wiest v. Tyco, in which the Third Circuit held that an employer’s investigation of unrelated wrongdoing by an employee insulated it against the employee’s Sarbanes-Oxley whistleblower retaliation claim. Now, we tackle another piece of the Wiest decision: the court’s holding that Wiest’s protected activity did not contribute to the adverse action against him.

To establish a Sarbanes-Oxley claim, an employee must show that there was a causal connection between his or her whistleblowing and an adverse employment action. If the employee can’t show that link, then he or she can’t prevail. In the Wiest case, the court assumed that Wiest did in fact engage in protected whistleblowing activity. But it held that Wiest didn’t have evidence to show that the whistleblowing caused the employer to take action against him.

• Harassment
• Sarbanes-Oxley Act
• Termination With or Without Cause
• Whistleblowers

An employee who has blown the whistle on wrongdoing is not immune from discipline or termination simply because she has engaged in protected activity.

The Third Circuit’s recent decision in Wiest v. Tyco Electronics provides a good example of how an employer can terminate an employee without legal repercussions, even when it is undisputed that the employee was protected against whistleblower retaliation.

• Harassment
• Sarbanes-Oxley Act
• Termination With or Without Cause
• Whistleblowers

When an executive has an employment agreement and his company doesn’t pay, the company might offer a number of excuses based on contract law. One of these contractual defenses is called “impossibility of performance.” Under this defense, when a party enters into a contract and circumstances later change such that the party can’t perform it, the party can be excused from performing.

The Virginia Supreme Court’s recent decision in Hampton Roads Bankshares, Inc. v. Harvard provides a timely example of how this defense actually works in practice. In the Hampton Roads case, the organization established a relationship with government regulators that affected its ability to pay severance. The court held that this change made it impossible for the company to perform an employment agreement, excusing performance.

• Breach of Contract
• Change-in-Control Provisions
• Severance Agreements

We’ve counted down our top posts from 2015, from American Apparel to Dr. Robert Schuller. Now, we look at the issues in executive disputes that are likely to draw the most attention in 2016.

• Breach of Contract
• Civil Litigation
• First Amendment
• Government Employers and Employees
• Noncompete Agreements ‎
• Statutes of limitation‎s
• The Yates Memo

The turn of the calendar is always a good time to reflect on what has come before and preview what lies ahead. In this post, we count down our most popular posts of 2015 about executive disputes. Later, we’ll look at what to expect in 2016.

• Age Discrimination
• Bankruptcy
• Breach of Contract
• Civil Litigation
• D&O
• Data Security
• Discrimination
• Executive Compensation
• Indemnification and Advancement
• Intellectual Property
• Noncompete Agreements ‎
• Severance Agreements
• Wrongful Termination

When the 2015 college football season started, Steve Sarkisian was a rising star in the coaching firmament. He had led the University of Washington Huskies and his current team, the University of Southern California Trojans, to winning records and bowl games.

In late August, however, reports surfaced that Sarkisian had behaved inappropriately at a booster event, the Salute to Troy. And by mid-October, USC had terminated Sarkisian “for cause,” with athletic director Pat Haden explaining that Sarkisian’s use of alcohol had impaired his performance of his job.

This week, Sarkisian struck back, filing a 14-count complaint against USC in Los Angeles Superior Court.

• Breach of Contract
• Discrimination
• Termination With or Without Cause

It’s an obvious best practice to put the terms of an employment agreement in writing. Equally obvious is the notion that the writing should be complete, whether in a single document or with reference to other items, such as employee manuals or company-wide incentive plans.

However, it’s not always obvious which documents make up an employment agreement.

Consider the recent decision issued by the United States District Court for the District of California in the case of Lenk v. Monolithic Power Systems, Inc.

• Breach of Contract
• Executive Compensation