Employment Law

A sailor has filed a second slip-and-fall case within one year against employers alleging that the environment on the ship where he worked was unsafe and led to his injuries, according to recent reports.  The plaintiff filed a lawsuit against Irika Shipping, Prosperity Management and Lake Shore Shipping in November 2009 and against Prosperity Management in December 2008, both for allegations of dangerous working conditions that led to a slip-and-fall accident.

According to the most recent complaint, the victim was employed by Kinder-Morgan aboard the Tina III, a ship owned by the defendant company, when he slipped and fell on the deck in April 2007, injuring his back.  This led to a Jones Act lawsuit against Prosperity management due to a claim of inadequate working surfaces.

The plaintiff is asking for damages including mental anguish, pain and suffering, lost earnings, medical expenses and impairment. Read the rest »

A Los Angeles jury has awarded $21.8 million to April Rodriguez, a customer service representative who alleged that she was fired for taking doctor-approved leave for panic attacks. Rodriguez stated in her lawsuit that that she was accused of “abandoning her job.”

According to JuryVerdictAlert.com, the defendants in this case, Valley Vista Services, Inc. and Zerep Management Corp., offered Rodriguez $750,000 before closing arguments. But the jury returned a $21.8 million including compensatory and punitive damages.

Read the rest »

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration estimates that there are around 100 thousand forklift accidents each year in the United States alone, injuring over thirty thousand people – with over a 100 of those being fatalities.  Given that there are approximately 1 million forklifts in operation in the US, the statistics suggest that 10% of forklifts may be involved in an accident in a given year.

A forklift is a smaller truck with a powered clamp in front that functions to lift heavy load. Coupling the heavy weight of the actual forklift and fork with the loads that the machine is lifting makes the potential forklift accidents significantly dangerous. When you add in both the potential for mechanical failure and human error in the machine’s operation, the risk of severe injury and substantial property damage increases dramatically.

Read the rest »

Dr. Carol Warfield, a Harvard doctor, who said she endured years of sexist treatment at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, will not only collect a $7 million settlement in a gender bias lawsuit, but will also have the hospital’s pain clinic named in her honor.

According to a news report in The Boston Globe, the hospital’s settlement with Warfield, former chief of anesthesia, appears to be one of the largest for a gender discrimination case in Massachusetts. However, it can be difficult to compare because most of these settlements tend to remain confidential. It is also typical for employers in these cases to pay the settlement and not admit to wrongdoing.

Allegations of Sexism and Gender Discrimination

Warfield became chief of anesthesia at the hospital in 2000. She claimed in her lawsuit that the chief of surgery at the hospital discriminated against her because she is a woman by openly ignoring her during meetings and even lobbying to remove her from her job. When she complained to the then-chief executive at the hospital, she said, both men retaliated against her and forced her out. Warfield sued the two male doctors and the hospital’s physician group in 2008. The settlement came just before a trial was scheduled to begin on the matter. Read the rest »

A woman is suing America’s largest furniture retailer, Ashley Furniture, over a claim that she was fired because she is a lesbian, according to a report by Huffington Post.  The woman claims that she was asked about her religious views and marital status during the interview process, and that one director forced her to pray with her about her sexual preference.

The victim is a lesbian who is married to another woman.  She was reported subjected to derogatory language during her employment, including the terms “lesbo” and “fag,” and also heard bosses or co-workers use racially-charged language.

The employee claims that she was fired after the director who prayed with her spotted a bumper sticker on her car that supported the Human Rights Campaign. Ashley Furniture has a history of supporting conservative and religious movements that define traditional marriage as the proper choice.

Can A Worker Sue for Discrimination? Read the rest »

Federal officials have released a report, which shows that more and more people in the workforce are claiming discrimination over their English speaking ability or foreign accents. According to a news report in The Associated Press, workplace discrimination complaints based on national origin, which often involve English language speaking ability, rose by a whopping 76 percent from 1997 to 2011. During this time, officials say, more than 11,800 complaints were lodged with the U.S. Equal Opportunity Commission (EEOC). Read the rest »