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A 69-year-old plaintiff who sued his former employer for allegedly violating the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (“ADEA”) learned a harsh lesson recently when the District Court awarded summary judgment to the employer: in discrimination cases, sometimes what actually happened isn’t nearly as important as what the employer believed to have happened. In Bandy v. Advance Auto Parts, Inc., Civil Action No. 7:11-cv-00365 (W.D. Va. Nov. 15, 2012), Roger Dean Bandy (“Bandy”) sued his former…

Earlier this month, the Fourth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals unanimously affirmed a federal court’s dismissal of an employee’s claims of Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) discrimination and retaliation for his firing after hurting his back and neck on the job.  The court considered whether the plaintiff was “disabled” under the ADA, and ultimately determined that he failed to show that his alleged injuries rose to the level of a disability as a matter of

The Federal Court in Roanoke, Virginia recently dismissed a plaintiff’s employment retaliation claim while allowing her sexual harassment and assault claims to proceed.  In Auriemma v. Logan’s Roadhouse, Inc., et al. Civil Action No. 7:12-cv-0284 (W.D. Va. Nov. 19, 2012), a former female employee sued the restaurant at which she had worked as a server, alleging sexual harassment, retaliation, and various state law torts (such as assault & battery). The plaintiff, Andrea Auriemma, had worked

The Federal District Court in Danville, Virginia recently dismissed a claim of retaliatory discharge by a male plaintiff fired for encouraging a female employee to complain about his supervisor’s jokes about public hair and male anatomy. The Court found that, while the employee thought that the alleged jokes were unlawful sexual harassment, his belief was not objectively reasonable. Rather, the alleged jokes were merely crude and boorish, and not severe or pervasive enough to rise

The disturbing answer, shown by a recent Virginia Supreme Court decision, is yes.  The federal employment discrimination laws generally do not allow suits against supervisors and managers for personnel choices they make for the company.  Despite this protection, however, other federal and state employment laws allow supervisors to be held liable for management decisions in some instances.  This is shown by the Virginia Supreme Court’s recent decision extending wrongful discharge liability to supervisors and individual