The Dallas Hospitality Employment Lawyer Blog

In a decision issued this week, the Fifth Circuit upheld and enforced a National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) order finding that a portion of a  non-unionized employer's confidentiality policy violated the National Labor Relations Act because it was overly broad and contained language employees could reasonably interpret as restricting the exercise of their Section 7 rights.  See Flex Frac Logistics, L.L.C. v. National Labor Relations Board,  No. 12-60752 (Mar. 24, 2014).  The employer's confidentiality policy included the following language: "Confidential information includes...personnel information and documents..." The NLRB found that even though the clause did not reference wages or the specific terms or conditions of employment, the clause nevertheless violated the NLRA.  In reviewing the NLRB's order, the Court reiterated that a workplace rule that forbids the discussion of confidential wage information between employees violates the NLRA....

It is common knowledge there are no magic words required for an eligible employee to make a valid request for FMLA leave.  But what happens when an employee makes a vague request?  The Eleventh Circuit answered this question in Hurley v. Kent of Naples, Inc. et al ., No. 13-10298 (11th Cir. Mar. 20, 2014).   Hurley, an executive, sent the CEO an e-mail that included a list of eleven weeks of vacation over a two year period.  The executive denied the request and asked to schedule a meeting to discuss the e-mail.  In response, Hurley sent another e-mail to the executive that said the vacation request "was not a request it was a schedule…I have been advised by my medical health/health professionals that my need to avail myself of vacation time that I have earned is no longer optional."   The next day, the two met, and the executive terminated Hurley for insubordination and poor performance.   A week after Hurley's discharge, he visited his health...

Congress enacted the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 (SOX) to safeguard investors in public companies and restore trust in the financial markets following the collapse of Enron. In a recent decision, the United States Supreme Court ruled that the whistleblower protection included in SOX protects not only the employees of public companies, but also the employees of privately-held contractors and subcontractors who render services to public companies.   See Lawson v. FMR LLC, No. 12-3 (March 4, 2014).   Drawing on, among other things, the legislative record, the plain language of the statute and Congressional intent, the Court noted that to exclude employees of private contractors and subcontractors would leave them vulnerable to retaliation by their employers for blowing the whistle on schemes to defraud public company investors, even if the schemes were engineered entirely by the contractor or subcontractor. Private contractors and subcontractors that do business with...

Today President Obama is expected to direct the United States Department of Labor to revise overtime pay regulations under the Fair Labor Standards Act to expand the scope of employees entitled to overtime pay.  Although the President's directive could take considerable time to accomplish, it could have a significant impact on the hospitality industry by increasing the number of employees, such as certain types of managers, who would no longer be classified as exempt.

Last October, the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals dealt the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) a blow when it reversed a religious failure to accommodate summary judgment ruling in the EEOC's favor and remanded the case with instructions to grant summary judgment in favor of the defendant, retailer Abercrombie & Fitch Stores.   See EEOC v. Abercrombie & Fitch Stores, Inc ., No. 11-5110 (10th Cir. 2013).   In the Abercrombie case, the Tenth Circuit found that Abercrombie was entitled to summary judgment as a matter of law because there was no genuine dispute of material fact that Ms. Elauf (the individual on whose behalf the EEOC sued) never informed Abercrombie prior to its hiring decision that she wore her headscarf, or “hijab,” for religious reasons, and that she needed an accommodation for that practice due to a conflict between the practice and Abercrombie’s clothing policy.  In the decision the Court repeatedly referenced the EEOC's Comp...