The VLW Blog

Almost four years after the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act took effect, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission recently filed and settled the agency’s first lawsuit alleging discrimination under the law. GINA prohibits discrimination based on genetic information as well as the “acquisition” of genetic information by an employer, including an employee’s family medical history. According to [...]

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A female former fundraiser for Virginia Tech presented enough evidence to support a jury verdict that the university had retaliated against her in violation of Title VII, a federal appellate panel said on Jan. 31. Shana Maron, one of three female fundraisers who sued, alleged that when she sought a promotion with a higher salary, [...]

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The curtain has come down on the contretemps over a coffee cup that played out in a Charlottesville office. The workplace drama opened in August 2007 at the National Ground Intelligence Center. An employee who volunteered on the office kitchen-cleaning committee allegedly threw away a coffee cup and spoon that had been left in the [...]

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A lawyer being treated for sleep apnea has settled his disability discrimination suit against the Virginia State Corporation Commission. On Jan. 7, Richmond U.S. District Judge John A. Gibney refused to dismiss a suit filed by Jonathan Orne, who served as Senior Counsel and lead lawyer to the SCC’s Bureau of Financial Institutions. The next [...]

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Document custodians must track a mass of digital data, and are bound to overlook – or delete – documents that later are demanded in a lawsuit. But there are sins of omission, and sins of commission. Taking a sledgehammer to a work computer would be the latter. Alan Taylor, a “computer expert by trade,” first [...]

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A drug company salesman claimed gender bias after his supervisor asked if the salesman’s wife could drop off their child at school, so the salesman could start work earlier. Noah Nathan said his employer, Takeda Pharmaceuticals, discriminated against him by questioning his child-care responsibilities. Nathan’s district sales manager wanted to enforce an 8:00 a.m. start [...]

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The gender discrimination lawsuit against Chesterfield County filed by a former human resources director has lawyers trading sharp words over discovery. Karla Gerner is on a “fishing expedition” with requests for personnel records for male former administrators in the county government, the county claims in a recent brief. The county attorney also accuses Gerner’s lawyers [...]

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A former patent examiner has lost an appeal of his disability and race discrimination suit against the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. Chuckwudi Perry, who is African-American, has no vision in his left eye and reduced vision in his right eye. Yet, he held a driver’s license and could read using magnifying glasses and straight-edge [...]

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A Friday opinion from the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals revives the gender discrimination claim of a former Chesterfield County human resources director. Karla Gerner sued the county for $1.1 million contending her severance package was meager compared to “sweetheart deals” offered to similarly situated male counterparts. Richmond federal Judge Henry Hudson dismissed the [...]

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Can a change-up on a job description help an employer prove a job was no longer open after it fired the person who had the job and she filed a Title VII case? A court may take on that question now that a public affairs officer at a federal agency gets a chance to try [...]

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