Yesterday, Judge Woodcock of the U.S. District Court of Maine denied the University of Phoenix’s request to transfer an age discrimination case against it to a court in Arizona, where it is headquartered. Two former employees of the university, one of whom lives in Maine, filed this lawsuit against the…
A security director for the National Basketball Association (NBA) has sued the NBA, USA basketball, and UConn women’s basketball coach Geno Auriemma because of retaliation she experienced after she rebuffed Auriemma’s sexual advances. The security director, Kelley Hardwick, claims that Auriemma’s sexual advance occurred in 2009 when she was working…
A group of black United Airlines employees have sued the company for race discrimination. The employees allege that United Airlines utilizes uncontrolled subjective criteria to select applicants for promotions. The suit also alleges that United operates two tracks for the promotion of employees — one for minorities and one for…
Yesterday, Senators Snowe and Collins voted with other Republicans in the U.S. Senate to prevent an up-or-down vote on the Paycheck Fairness Act, effectively blocking it for now. The Paycheck Fairness Act would make it more difficult for employers to pay women less than men for the same work. It…
Last week, the First Circuit Court of Appeals, which rules on federal appeals from Maine, other New England states, and Puerto Rico, held that an arbitrator would need to decide whether an employer’s arbitration agreement could shorten the statute of limitations on claims against it. In this case, the plaintiff…
Yesterday, the Maine Human Rights Commission unanimously found that Families Matter, Inc., an employer located in Hallowell that provides services to young adults with special needs, discriminated against its former employee, Lisa Pierce, based on her race and ethnicity. Ms. Pierce served as an Assistant Director for the company’s Skowhegan…
The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) recently issued updated Enforcement Guidance titled “Consideration of Arrest and Conviction Records in Employment Decisions Under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.” The EEOC updated its guidance in this area because, during the twenty years since it first issued guidance…
Today, a bi-partisan group of U.S. Senators, which includes Susan Collins, called for Senate hearings regarding the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA), which would make it unlawful under federal law for employers to discriminate against employees on the basis of their sexual orientation or gender identity. The text of the Senators’…
Today, the U.S. District Court in Bangor rejected UPS Cartage Services, Inc.’s (UPS) argument that a federal whistleblower law which protects truck drivers, the Surface Transportation Assistance Act (STAA), did not prohibit it from retaliating against a truck driver who reported safety problems with its trucks. Former UPS truck driver,…
Yesterday, the U.S. District Court in Bangor refused to dismiss a lawsuit that a group of six former University of Southern Maine employees have brought against the University of Maine System (UMS) and the Chancellor of UMS (the “Defendants”). The former employees, ranging in age from 55 to 65, claim…