Title VII - Burden Of Proof

In Ames v. Ohio Department of Youth Services , the U.S. Supreme Court resolved a disagreement between circuit courts over the burden of proof required by a plaintiff from a majority group alleging discrimination under Title VII

By: Supreme Court Unanimously Rejects Heightened Burden for Majority-Group Plaintiffs in Title VII Claims On June 5, 2025, the United States Supreme Court issued a unanimous opinion in Ames v. Ohio Department of Youth Services , rejecting a longstanding rule applied by the Sixth Circuit and other ci

High Court Eliminates “Background Circumstances” as a Requirement in “Reverse Discrimination” Cases On June 5, 2025, the Supreme Court in Ames v. Ohio Department of Youth Services unanimously struck down the Sixth Circuit’s “background circumstances” rule, which had required majority-group plaintiff

On June 5, 2025, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that employees who are part of a majority group do not have a higher evidentiary standard to prove workplace discrimination. The ruling revived a heterosexual woman’s lawsuit alleging she was discriminated against in favor of employees wh

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit recently reinstated a former laundromat employee’s discrimination lawsuit against her employer, even though her employment had been terminated for taking cash from the cash register. The decision in Knox v. CRC Management Co., LLC , No. 23-121 (2d Cir

Title VII of the Civil Rights Act requires employers in the healthcare industry to provide a reasonable accommodation to employees’ sincerely held religious beliefs and practices. Common accommodation requests relate to:

The proper standard for comparator evidence in cases alleging intentional discrimination is “similarly situated in all material aspects,” the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit has clarified in an en banc ruling. Lewis v. City of Union City, Ga., No. 15-11362, 2019 U.S. App. LEXIS 8450 (

Most employees who file employment discrimination claims hope for one of two things – a really sympathetic jury or an employer that is willing to generously settle the lawsuit to avoid the risks and uncertainties of trial. Before either is a possibility in federal (and many state) courts, the employ

An employer’s reliance on a positive alcohol test was held to be a legitimate and non-discriminatory basis for termination, despite the terminated employee’s argument that the test result was inaccurate. Clark v. Boyd Tunica, Inc., 2016 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 35223 (N.D. Miss. March 1, 2016).

Where a former female employee showed a hospital imposed lesser disciplinary action upon male employees for infractions similar to the one that led to her discharge, her sex discrimination claims can proceed, a federal appeals court has ruled, reversing summary judgment for the hospital. Jackson v.