United States: Employment Litigation/ Tribunals

The National Labor Relations Board has reinstated the burden-shifting standard from General Motors LLC for evaluating whether employees lose NLRA protection when engaging in misconduct during protected activities. This decision reverses the 2023 Lion Elastomers II ruling and restores a framework that allows employers to discipline abusive conduct while navigating the tension between labor law protections and anti-discrimination obligations.

Former employees in California may still have legal options to report sexual harassment that occurred during their employment, even after quitting or being terminated. Understanding filing deadlines, evidence preservation, and retaliation protections is crucial for workers considering legal action against workplace misconduct.

On October 13, 2026, in Bolton v. Inland Fresh Seafood Corporation of America, Inc., No. 24-10084, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit overturned its longstanding practice of requiring benefit plan participants to exhaust administrative remedies before filing statutory claims under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA). Administrative exhaustion requirements compel potential litigants to satisfy any plan-required internal appeals process with the plan sponsor or the plan administrator to resolve a dispute before a suit may be filed in court.

A White male plaintiff has filed a lawsuit against Edward Jones, challenging the company's "Goodknight" diversity program that allegedly incentivizes financial advisors to transition clients to female or other diverse advisors. The case represents one of several recent reverse discrimination lawsuits targeting corporate DEI initiatives, raising questions about the legal boundaries of workplace diversity programs under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act.

A federal appeals court has ruled that grocery workers who arrive on time but must wait outside locked stores for managers may be entitled to compensation for that waiting time. The decision examines when pre-shift waiting becomes compensable work under the Fair Labor Standards Act, challenging traditional boundaries between preliminary activities and principal work duties.

A federal court in Ohio granted conditional certification of a collective action challenging an employer's time-rounding practices, finding that workers across multiple positions and facilities were subject to the same non-neutral rounding policy that allegedly resulted in overtime violations. The court determined that representative evidence, including expert testimony showing the rounding practices worked against employees nearly 80 percent of the time, was sufficient to demonstrate that putative collecti

The U.S. Supreme Court has decided to hear a case exploring the scope of Title IX of the Education Amendments Act of 1972. Next term, the Supreme Court will determine whether employees of federally funded educational institutions have a private right of action for sex discrimination in the workplace.

The National Labor Relations Board has once again shifted its approach to evaluating offensive employee conduct in the workplace, abandoning context-specific standards in favor of the traditional Wright Line framework. This latest reversal marks the third major change in NLRB policy within six years, creating significant implications for how employers can discipline employees who engage in profane or inappropriate behavior during protected activities.

The NLRB confirmed the validity of the employer friendly standard from General Motors regarding when an employee’s abusive or offensive conduct does not qualify as protected under the NLRA, replacing the long-standing Atlantic Steel precedent.