Green Savits Employment Law Blog

When Naomi Parker Fraley was 20 years old in 1942, she was photographed in her work uniform performing her job duties at the Naval Air Station in Alameda, California. She began work there right after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor where her duties included drilling, patching airplane wings and riveting.  Unknown to her until very recently, that picture was used for the poster "Rosie the Riveter" that was distributed throughout the country during that war.  Ms. Fraley was not identified as the young woman used for the famous poster until 2016 by Dr. James Kimble, associate professor of communication and the arts at Seton Hall...

Last week, I settled a difficult age discrimination case for a substantial six figure number (which must be kept otherwise confidential as to its terms). Even though the lawsuit was brought under New Jersey's anti-discrimination lawsuit, the case was filed in New Jersey federal district court. Why?  Because our client worked out of his home office in New Jersey but the company and indiviudals involved in firing him all lived and worked outside of New Jersey thus creating what is known as diversity jurisdiction. This means that the employer could choose to remove/transfer the case to federal court because of a statute passed by Congress in...

The federal  3rd Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia yesterday overturned the dismissal of an in-house patent lawyer's claim that he was fired because he refused to participate in conduct that would have violated the New Jersey Rules of Professional Conduct governing attorneys and the rules of the United States Patent and Trademark Office.  In that case, a  French beauty company required patent in-house counsel to satisfy a quota of patent applications which if not met, would result in termination.  Plaintiff objected that he could not submit applications that did not have a good faith basis to be patentable which violated NJ RPC’s...

The Third Circuit Court of Appeals (covering New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware and the Virgin Islands) ruled last week that a supervisor's use of the "n" word while threatening to fire African American employees is sufficient to allow a lawsuit to proceed under federal civil rights statutes.  The appellate decision reversed the trial court's dismissal of the case and stated that the district court relied on the wrong legal standard when doing so.  Click on the decision to see why the court ruled as it did.

If you believe that remarks in the workplace about you and your status are so severe as to make your work environment hostile...