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1. New state and federal laws and regulations will add employee rights and protections. In 2012, states like New Jersey and Oregon enacted laws protecting the jobless against hiring discrimination, and other states like California and Illinois enacted laws barring employers from demanding access to workers’ social networking accounts. The federal government is likely to follow suit with new protections proposed in recent bills, such as the Employment Non-Discrimination Act that bars sexual orientation discrimination,…

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