Atlanta Employment Lawyer Blog

The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) contains a rarely used provision that protects employees who are not disabled but who are discriminated against because they are associated with an individual, such as a spouse or other family member, who is disabled. A recent case from the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals, Trujillo v. PacifiCorp, although not controlling in the state of Georgia, has set a very strong employee-friendly precedent that should be favorable to employees throughout the country.

William and Debra Trujillo were long-term employees of PacifiCorp and they participated in the company’s health insurance plan. Their son Charlie was also covered by the plan. Charlie had cancer (which the company was aware of), and in the spring of 2003 he had a relapse, necessitating an aggressive course of medical treatments which, as the company was self-insured, eventually cost the company more than $60,000.

Just 11 days after Charlie’s relapse, the company launched an investigation of the Trujillos on suspicion of time theft. After a brief investigation, in which key witnesses were not interviewed, and suspect evidence was relied on, the Trujillos were discharged.

In response, the Trujillos filed an association discrimination lawsuit under the ADA, contending that they were terminated not because of their alleged time theft but because of the healthcare costs the company incurred as a result of Charlie’s illness. The lower court ruled in favor of the company, concluding that the Trujillos failed to show that the circumstances raised a reasonable inference that Charlie’s disability was a determining factor in the company’s decision to fire them.

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Posted In: Disability Discrimination

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As we wrote in a prior post about the case of Reeves v. C.H. Robinson on sexual harassment, an employee complaining about sexual harassment in the workplace must prove that harassment was severe and pervasive, and not merely sporadic or occasional. Unfortunately for the employee in a recent case, Webb-Edwards v. Orange County Sherriff’s Office, even though she experienced considerable harassment from her supervisor, it was not severe and pervasive enough to give rise to a valid claim of sexual harassment.

Elaine Webb-Edwards was a deputy sheriff in the Orange County, Florida Sheriff’s Office. Her supervisor made a number of sexually charged comments that offended her, such as, “you look hot,” and “you’d look better if you’d wear tighter clothes.” On one occasion, when the employee and her supervisor were riding alone in a squad car, and the employee was speaking to her husband on her cell phone about lunch plans, the supervisor grabbed the phone out of the employee’s hands and told her husband, “I don’t know what you’re saying, but I’m eating your wife.”

After the employee complained about these comments, the supervisor stopped making them, but he continued to look at her from time to time in a way that made her feel uncomfortable.

The employee eventually filed a sexual harassment suit in federal court. The County, however, moved for summary judgment, which the court granted, finding that the alleged sexual harassment was not sufficiently severe and pervasive to create an abusive and hostile work environment. On the employee’s appeal, the Eleventh Circuit affirmed the judgment. The court held that even though the comments were made on a regular basis, they made the employee feel uncomfortable, and they were “taunting and boorish,” because they were not physically threatening or humiliating, and the supervisor never actually touched Ms. Webb-Edwards, a reasonable person in her shoes would not have found the supervisor’s conduct sufficiently hostile or abusive to support her claim of sexual harassment. The court did take special pains to note that although it was particularly concerned about the “eating your wife” comment, it concluded that this comment was still not sufficiently abusive, even in conjunction with the other offensive conduct, to establish a sexual harassment claim.

To get a good overview of the current state of sexual harassment law as it applies in the State of Georgia, take a look at the Webb-Edwards case as well as the Reeves case.

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Posted In: Sexual Harassment

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A good sexual harassment case has come out of the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals—the federal appeals court for the states of Georgia, Florida, and Alabama. In Reeves v. C.H. Robinson, a female employee claimed that for a period of almost three years there were daily instances of sexually offensive language and conduct in her workplace, including profanity that was derogatory toward women (such as “whore, bitch, tramp, slut” and even more disgusting language that we are too modest to repeat here), sexual jokes, and sexually explicit radio programs that were allowed to play in the office. The offensive conduct, however, was not specifically directed at the employee, and most of it she simply overheard during the course of her workday.

The employee eventually resigned and filed a sexual harassment charge against her employer. The lower court dismissed the case on summary judgment, holding that the harassment was not “based on” the employee’s sex because the conduct was not specifically directed at the employee, and everyone in the workplace—males and females—was exposed to it.

On appeal, the Eleventh Circuit reversed, and reinstated the employee’s case. Analyzing the “based on” requirement of the sexual harassment laws, the court ruled that “sex specific language”— which is language that is more offensive to one sex than the other—satisfies the “based on” requirement, whether or not the sexually harassing conduct was specifically directed at the employee.

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We recently wrote about the Senate’s passage of the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act, a federal law that would prohibit employers from discriminating against employees based on the results of genetic tests and also prohibit health insurance companies from relying on the results of genetic tests in setting premium rates or making enrollment eligibility decisions.

The good news is that on May 1, 2008, the House got on board by passing an identical version of the bill, by a margin of 414-1, with the only dissenting vote coming from Texas Republican and former presidential candidate Ron Paul.

President Bush has already expressed his support for the law and is expected to sign it in the near future.

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Posted In: Discrimination

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