New Jersey Employment Lawyer Blog

Over the past few weeks, one of our clients has been in the news. Specifically, Bogota New Jersey Police Officer Regina Tasca is currently in the middle of a disciplinary hearing that will determine whether she will lose her job. Her hearing has received significant media attention.

Officer Tasca is the only female and the only gay member of the Bogota Police Department. She has retained my firm to represent her in a civil lawsuit based on the fact that Bogota engaged in gender and sexual orientation discrimination and harassment toward her, and retaliated against her in violation of her civil rights and the New Jersey Conscientious Employee Protection Act (CEPA). She is waiting for the outcome of her disciplinary hearing before she files her lawsuit.

On April 18, Officer Tasca was interviewed live on the WPIX morning news for the story Officer Regina Tasca On Being Suspended For Not Lying About Fellow Cops' Actions.

On April 17, 2012 her case was the subject of a story on the WPIX evening news entitled Officer May Be Fired After Stopping Beatdown.

Officer Tasca's hearing has also been the subject of an article in the Bergen Record. Officer Tasca's disciplinary hearing is scheduled to resume on April 24, April 25.

Continue reading "Police Officer Fights Potential Termination and Prepares for Civil Rights Lawsuit" »

On March 29, 2012, the United States Equal Employment Opportunity issued new regulations regarding the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA). Specifically, the regulations relate to the "reasonable factors other than age" defense to disparate-impact claims. A disparate impact claim is when a company has a policy that appears to be neutral on its face, but in practice it disproportionately harms a legally protected group. A policy that has a disparate impacted based on age violates the ADEA unless it is based on reasonable factors other than age.

Under the new regulations, an employee who claims a company's policy or practice has a disparate impact based on age is required to identify the specific policy he claims has a disparate impact on older workers. However, the employer has the burden to prove it has a reasonable basis for the policy other than age.

The regulations define "reasonable" to mean that an objectively reasonable employer would conclude the policy (1) is reasonably designed to meet a legitimate business purpose, and (2) was applied in a way that reasonably achieves that purpose. Some of the factors relevant to determining whether a factor on than age is reasonable include:

1. The extent to which the policy is related to the employer's stated business purpose;


2. The degree to which the employer accurately defined and applied the policy, and provided guidance and training to the individuals who will apply it, in order to avoid age discrimination;


3. The extent to which the employer limited the discretion of supervisors when they apply the policy;


4. The degree to which the company evaluated the policy's impact on older employees; and


5. The extent to which the policy harms older workers in terms of the degree of harm and the number of employees who are harmed; and the degree to which the employer took steps to minimize the harm, compared to the cost of taking those steps

Continue reading "EEOC Clarifies Reasonable Factors Other Than Age Defense" »

Last month, the United States Supreme Court ruled that the "self-care" provisions of the Family & Medical Leave Act of 1993 (FMLA) cannot be enforced against a state, unless the state consents to being sued under the FMLA. The FMLA is a federal law that guarantees eligible employees the right to take up to 12 weeks off per year due to their own serious health condition (medical leaves), or due to a serious health condition of their spouse, parent, or child (family leaves). Under the Supreme Court's decision, the FMLA's family leave provisions still apply to states. However, the FMLA no longer requires states to permit their employees to take time off for their own medical conditions.

The basis for the Supreme Court's decision is the 11th Amendment to the United States Constitution, which declares the states to be sovereign, and limits the federal government's right to create laws under which states can be sued. The 14th Amendment, which forbids the states from denying equal protection of the law to anyone, provides a limited exception to the States' sovereign immunity. In the context of federal laws like the FMLA, which are intended to protect against gender discrimination, that exception only applies if the law is intended to correct a well-documented pattern of gender discrimination.

In Coleman v. Court of Appeals of Maryland, the Supreme Court recognized that when Congress passed the FMLA, it had strong evidence that states were discriminating against women based on sex with respect to their family-leave policies. It therefore had previously recognized that the FMLA's family-leave provisions do apply to states. However, Coleman concludes that Congress did not have enough evidence of gender discrimination with respect to medical leaves for an employee's own serious health to justify applying those provisions of the FMLA to states. It reached this conclusion even though Congress apparently intended the FMLA's medical leave provisions to protect women with pregnancy-related illnesses, but in a way that did not discriminate against men by protecting all medical leaves, and not just leaves for pregnancy-related conditions.

The Supreme Court's ruling does not merely mean that the FMLA's self-care provisions are unenforceable against states like New Jersey and New York. It also applies to subdivisions of the state, such as towns, cities, boroughs, villages, and other municipalities. It also applies to and municipal police departments, fire department, schools districts, and other state and local government entities. However, it does not eliminate protections against pregnancy or disability discrimination committed by state and local government provided by other laws such as the American's with Disabilities Act (ADA), the Pregnancy Discrimination Act (PDA), the New Jersey Law Against Discrimination (NJLAD), New Jersey's Family Leave Act (NJFLA), the New York Human Rights Law (NYHRL), and the New York City Human Rights Law (NYCHRL).

Continue reading "States Cannot Be Sued for Violations of FMLA Relating to Self Care Medical Leaves" »