Law Commons^™

Using State And Local Governments’ Purchasing Power To Combat Wage Theft, Courtlyn G. Roser-Jones

Washington and Lee Law Review

Regulatory efforts to curb wage theft are failing. And for good reason: these laws generally empower individual workers to pursue their rights when employers neglect to pay them what they are owed and deter employers with substantial penalties. But the vast majority of workers do not take formal action against their employers. So, when the penalties for committing wage theft are almost entirely triggered by claims workers do not bring, they do not deter employer behavior. Instead, because the likelihood of being penalized at all is so low, some employers make profit-maximizing decisions to commit wage theft on a large …

#Metoo & The Courts: The Impact Of Social Movements On Federal Judicial Decisionmaking, Carol T. Li, Matthew E.K. Hall, Veronica Root Martinez

Washington and Lee Law Review Online

In late 2017, the #MeToo movement swept through the United States as individuals from all backgrounds and walks of life revealed their experiences with sexual abuse and sexual harassment. After the #MeToo movement, many scholars, advocates, and policymakers posited that the watershed moment would prompt changes in the ways in which sexual harassment cases were handled. This Article examines the impact the #MeToo movement has had on judicial decisionmaking. Our hypothesis is that the #MeToo movement’s increase in public awareness and political attention to experiences of sexual misconduct should lead to more pro-claimant voting in federal courts at the district …

Raising The Floor From The Back Door: Shareholder Proposals As A Mechanism For Raising Minimum Wage, Laura Carrier

Washington and Lee Law Review

When adjusted to reflect inflation, the federal minimum wage is almost 40 percent lower than it was in 1970. The Biden Administration tried and failed to legislatively raise the minimum wage, and political deadlock will continue to kill legislative change. The shareholder proposal, a nonbinding recommendation to management that shareholders can submit for a vote at a public corporation’s annual meeting, presents a path for improving the wages of many workers in the absence of federal legislation. This Note analyzes the best approach to crafting a shareholder proposal on minimum wage that will prompt an effective increase in the minimum …

Religious Ministers And The Scope Of Their Rights To Non-Discrimination In Employment, R. George Wright

Washington and Lee Journal of Civil Rights and Social Justice

The First Amendment is currently thought to bar ministerial employees from any recourse against their religious employer under a wide variety of non-discrimination statutes and other forms of legal protection. The typical critique of this state of affairs seeks to narrow the class of persons who count as ministerial employees. This paper focuses instead on an important, and peculiar, aspect of the ministerial exception doctrine. At present, the law generally prohibits any recovery by ministerial employees for employment discrimination by their religious employer even where the employer’s reasons for the discrimination have nothing to do with any religious doctrine, belief, …

Transforming The Future Of Work By Embracing Corporate Social Justice, Andrea Giampetro-Meyer

Washington and Lee Journal of Civil Rights and Social Justice

Professionals from Generations Y (millennials) and Z (Gen Z or zoomers) expect their employers to embrace diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI). They want to work for companies that support individuals of various races, ethnicities, religions, abilities, genders, and sexual orientations. Professionals from these generations are seeking employers that have created a diverse workforce, clear promotion track, and a commitment to dismantling systemic racism. Companies that want to attract top talent are making DEI a priority. They are also implementing action plans to demonstrate their serious commitment to DEI because millennials and zoomers are quick to recognize and criticize performative approaches. …

Unfair By Default: Arbitration's Reverse Default Judgment Problem, Alexi Pfeffer-Gillett

Scholarly Articles

It is a foundational principle of civil law that a defendant who fails to respond to allegations is deemed to have admitted those allegations and can be subjected to default judgment liability. This threat of default judgment incentivizes defendants to respond to claims, thereby discouraging delay tactics and helping ensure cases are resolved efficiently on the merits.

In consumer and employment arbitration, though, the fairness and efficiency benefits of traditional default judgment are flipped, rewarding rather than punishing unresponsive defendants. This difference from civil litigation arises out of arbitration’s fee structures: if a defendant-company fails to pay its share of …

Hollywood At Home: Applying Federal Child Labor Laws To Traditional And Modern Child Performers, Shannon Kate Mcgrath

Washington and Lee Journal of Civil Rights and Social Justice

In the past few years there has been a rise in online influencers who gain money and fame from their online content, and in many cases these influencers are children. Although this can be seen as a “job,” federal child labor laws exempt all child performers from protections. This means traditional child actors and children who create online content must rely on state laws regarding child labor. While some states have protections for child performers, several states have no such laws in place. In addition, the current protections are not available to children who take part in online content. Without …

Looking A Gift Horse In The Mouth: Working Students Under The Fair Labor Standards Act, Lara Morris

Washington and Lee Law Review

Internships have skyrocketed in popularity as they become the new entry-level position for professional careers across the country. Despite their popularity, the legality of internships falls in a gray area created by a vague statute and a flexible, factor-based judicial test. The Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), which regulates employment relationships and importantly mandates a minimum wage and hour requirements, was written long before internships became commonplace and provides little direction for how to regulate these positions. In this void, both the Department of Labor and federal courts have developed guidance, the ultimate culmination of which is the modern primary …

Comment: Unpaid Internships And The Rural-Urban Divide, Susan D. Carle

Washington and Lee Law Review

In this Comment, I first note how much the existing literature on unpaid internships under the FLSA focuses on urban contexts. Next, I briefly sketch some of the literature on the rural-urban divide, a topic I argue needs much more analysis from legal scholars in coming years. Third, I show how Morris’s work brings together these two literatures, which to this point have not been in conversation with each other. Finally, I note a few questions Morris’s work raises for future attention.

Boba Fett, Bounty Hunters, And The Supreme Court’S Viking River Decision: A New Hope, Imre S. Szalai

Washington and Lee Law Review Online

The United States Supreme Court recently issued a fractured decision in Viking River Cruises, Inc. v. Moriana, 142 S. Ct. 1906 (June 15, 2022), a classic David v. Goliath clash between a worker and employer. Can arbitration agreements be used to eliminate group or representative actions brought against employers, where the plaintiff worker is serving as a bounty hunter for the State? Although the majority clearly holds that a worker’s individual claims must be sent to arbitration pursuant to a predispute arbitration agreement, the splintered opinions leave some uncertainty regarding what happens to the representative claims of the other …

California And The Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Statutory Employee Classification Scheme, Richard H. Gilliland Iii

Washington and Lee Law Review

The battle over worker classification between state governments, on the one hand, and gig economy companies, on the other, has raged since at least the first time someone ordered an Uber. Nowhere has this battle played out more prominently in recent years than in California. In 2019, the state legislature passed AB 5, a bill which adopted a stringent independent contractor standard and effectively classified all gig economy workers as employees of the companies whose apps they use to find work. AB 5’s ripple effects were enormous—the significant popularity of gig economy apps among consumers launched what might have been …

Pretext After Bostock—Disproving One Of The Employer’S Reasons Is Enough, Robert S. Mantell

Washington and Lee Journal of Civil Rights and Social Justice

When an employer gives a pretextual reason for an employee’s termination, that falsehood can help prove that the true reason was discrimination. The dishonesty constitutes “affirmative evidence of guilt.” The trier of fact may “infer the ultimate fact of discrimination from the falsity of the employer’s explanation.” However, when an employer provides multiple reasons for firing an employee, there has been a split of opinion whether the plaintiff must disprove one or all of those reasons.

The Supreme Court’s recent discussion of multiple motives in Bostock v. Clayton County provides the tools to resolve this split and compels rejection of …

The Pandemic And The Public Nuisance: Judicial Intervention In The Era Of Covid-19 And The Collective Right To Public Health, Kyra Ziesk-Socolov

Washington and Lee Journal of Civil Rights and Social Justice

Amidst the unprecedented disruption caused by COVID-19, workplace lawsuits around the country began to apply a longstanding common law theory in a novel way: employee plaintiffs argued that their employers’ noncompliance with state and federal public health guidance designed to curb the spread of the virus should be enjoined as a public nuisance. Although some of these initial public nuisance suits were dismissed, others successfully forced defendant businesses to either alter their COVID safety practices or temporarily close. This Article explores the first pandemic-era public nuisance suit, Rural Community Workers Alliance v. Smithfield Foods, brought by meatpacking plant workers …

Blood, Sweat, Tears: A Re-Examination Of The Exploitation Of College Athletes, Keely Grey Fresh

Washington and Lee Journal of Civil Rights and Social Justice

2021 Louise Halper Award Winner for Best Student Note

The unrest revolving around compensation for college athletes is not a new concept. However, public attitudes are shifting. With spirited arguments on both sides, and the recent Supreme Court decision of National Collegiate Athletic Association v. Alston regarding antitrust exemptions, the issue has been placed in a spotlight. This Note examines the buildup of discontentment through the history of the NCAA and amateurism, specifically how the term “student-athlete” became coined. It will then move to litigation efforts by athletes in an attempt to gain employment status, and an alternative route of …

Working While Mothering During The Pandemic And Beyond, Nicole Buonocore Porter

Washington and Lee Law Review Online

Although combining work and family has never been easy for women, working while mothering during the pandemic was close to impossible. When COVID-19 caused most workplaces to shut down, many women were laid off. But many women were forced to work from home alongside their children, who could not attend daycare or school. Mothers tried valiantly to combine a full day’s work on top of caring for young children and helping school-aged children with remote school. But many found this balance difficult, leading to women’s lowest workforce participation rate in over forty years. And even women who did not quit …

The Soft-Shoe And Shuffle Of Law School Hiring Committee Practices, Carliss N. Chatman, Najarian R. Peters

Scholarly Articles

It is in the spirit of Ida B. Wells that we seek to turn the light upon the systemic racism of hiring practices. We believe these practices are indicators of the systemic failures on campuses and in workplaces that prevent them from being antiracist. We seek to use this Essay as a “tool for exposing, analyzing, and challenging the majoritarian stories of racial privilege.”

Our specifc intention is to recognize the largely performative nature of claiming to be committed to an idea while substantively and concretely ensuring the opposite. This Essay is written with specific experiences, patterns, and practices in …

Noncompetes And Other Post-Employment Restraints On Competition: Empirical Evidence From Trade Secret Litigation, Christopher B. Seaman

Scholarly Articles

Noncompete clauses in employment agreements are both common and controversial. An estimated twenty-eight million Americans—nearly twenty percent of the U.S. workforce—are currently bound by a noncompete. The traditional view that noncompete agreements can facilitate increased productivity by encouraging employers to invest in employee training has been challenged by numerous legal and economics scholars in recent years, who contend noncompetes hinder employment options for skilled workers and limit information spillovers, which are both vital drivers of innovation. Based on these claims, several states have recently limited the enforcement of noncompetes, and legislation is pending at the federal level to effectively ban …

The Sexual Harassment Loophole, Keith Cunningham-Parmeter

Washington and Lee Law Review

Employers rarely pay for sexual harassment. The #MeToo movement has not changed this legal reality. Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964—the nation’s primary workplace antidiscrimination law—contains a harassment loophole. Harassment is the only kind of Title VII violation that allows employers to avoid liability if they offer training and reporting opportunities to workers. In contrast, employers must automatically pay for all other Title VII claims such as discriminatory firings, even when firms have trained their employees not to discriminate. This Article makes the case for closing the loophole by aligning harassment liability with other Title VII offenses …

Something For Nothing: Universal Basic Income And The Value Of Work Beyond Incentives, Jonathan D. Grossberg

Washington and Lee Journal of Civil Rights and Social Justice

Proponents and opponents of a universal basic income all acknowledge that the most significant political challenge to its adoption in the United States is that a universal basic income would not have a work requirement attached. Often, this is characterized as a problem involving incentives—the availability of a universal basic income would cause many people to stop working (or significantly curtail the number of hours that they work) and simply live off the universal basic income. This Article makes three contributions to the literature related to a universal basic income: First, it provides a typology for understanding the many reasons …

Eitc For All: A Universal Basic Income Compromise Proposal, Benjamin M. Leff

Washington and Lee Journal of Civil Rights and Social Justice

Much has been written about a concept called universal basic income (UBI). With a UBI, the government gives every person a certain amount of money each year, or even each month. The UBI has broad appeal with thinkers on both the right and the left, but the appeal is partially because different thinkers have different visions of what the current state of affairs is with respect to government welfare policies and different theories about why these existing policies are inadequate or damaging. Reforming existing programs, rather than making a radical break with the past, could satisfy at least some of …

Land Of The Free (Appropriate Public Education), Home Of The Deprived: How Vocational Services Can Remedy Education Deprivations For Former Students With Disabilities, Maria N. Liberopoulos

Washington and Lee Journal of Civil Rights and Social Justice

This Note explores the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act’s requirement that all children between the ages of three and twenty-one are provided a free and appropriate public education. This Note focuses on the relief available for students who are either older than twenty-one or who received a high school diploma, but who did not receive a free and appropriate public education. After delving into the remedy of compensatory education, this Note proposes the Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services of the Department of Education promulgate a new regulation that includes vocational training and services as a specific remedy under …

“No More No-Poach”: An Antitrust Plaintiff’S Guide, Amanda Triplett

Washington and Lee Journal of Civil Rights and Social Justice

It may seem that agreements between employers not to hire or solicit employees from each other would be illegal under the Sherman Act’s prohibition of conspiracies to fix prices or allocate markets. However, the complexity of this issue pushes the boundaries of antitrust law. But the core principals of antitrust law are tailored to reject them. In a market of employers, where firms are competitors, no-poach restraints have horizontal elements subject to a harsher standard of antitrust review. Firms that enter into these arrangements bypass legal methods to protect against the harms of employee loss, such as a non-compete agreement. …

Brief Of Amicus Curiae The Washington And Lee University School Of Law Black Lung Clinic In Support Of Petitioners: California V. Texas, Timothy C. Macdonnell

Scholarly Articles

Section 1556 of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) makes two major changes to the Black Lung Benefits Act. These changes remove limiting language to make it simpler for disabled miners and their families to establish that they are entitled to federal benefits. First, § 1556(a) reinstates the fifteen-year rebuttable presumption, which presumptively entitles former coal miners to benefits if they have worked over fifteen years underground and have a totally disabling pulmonary disease. The second, § 1556(b), reinstates a continuation of benefits for surviving spouses whose coal-mining spouse was receiving benefits at the time of their death. …

Dignity And Discrimination In Sexual Harassment Law: A French Case Study, L. Camille Hébert

Washington and Lee Journal of Civil Rights and Social Justice

In 2012, France adopted new prohibitions on sexual harassment into its Labor and Penal Codes. That enactment, which significantly broadened the definition of actionable harassment, was based on a model of harassment law that defines sexual harassment as a form of discrimination, while the French have traditionally conceived of sexual harassment as a form of sexual violence. Cases decided under the new prohibitions, as well as additional legislation adopted in France in 2016 and 2018, the latter prompted by France’s “#MeToo” movement, suggest that the French are beginning to perceive sexual harassment as implicating issues of both dignity and equality …

“Just When I Thought I Was Out . . . .”: Post-Employment Repayment Obligations, Stuart Lichten, Eric M. Fink

Washington and Lee Journal of Civil Rights and Social Justice

The common law doctrine of “employment at will” has dominated U.S. employment law for over a century. Pursuant to this concept, an employer may discharge an employee at any time for any reason, or for no reason at all. An employee may similarly resign at any time for any reason, or for no reason at all. Despite the rule’s facial even-handedness, it operates against the background of “the deeply rooted conception of the employment relation as a dominant-servient relation rather than one of mutual rights and obligations.” Within that relationship, “the employer [has] the right to impose any requirement on …

#Metoo & Tax, Margaret Ryznar

Washington and Lee Law Review Online

Recently, legislative efforts have taken aim at sexual harassment in the workplace. Among these may be a surprising but effective approach—disallowing tax deductions for sexual harassment settlements subject to non-disclosure agreements. This Essay analyzes such a 2017 tax reform provision.

Overtime: Are Public Employees Compensated For Working Extra Hours?, Thomas P. Dematteo

Washington and Lee Journal of Civil Rights and Social Justice

No abstract provided.

Not Just A Game: The Employment Status And Collective Bargaining Rights Of Professional Esports Players, Hunter Amadeus Bayliss

Washington and Lee Journal of Civil Rights and Social Justice

No abstract provided.

When “Disruption” Collides With Accountability: Holding Ridesharing Companies Liable For Acts Of Their Drivers, Alexi Pfeffer-Gillett

Scholarly Articles

When Uber launched in San Francisco in 2010, it took the city by storm. Here was a high-tech transportation service that seemingly did everything better than taxicabs: it was more convenient, more accessible, more comfortable, and even cheaper in many instances. Uber’s initial success inspired a number of lower-cost, nonprofessional “ridesharing” options, which have flourished.

Some skeptics, including taxicab operators, have decried the arrival of these peer-to-peer ridesharing services, now classified by regulators as Transportation Network Companies (TNCs). While such complaints could be easily dismissed as the dying groans of a “disrupted” industry, a string of passenger safety incidents has …

“Justice Is What Love Looks Like In Public”: How The Affordable Care Act Falls Short On Transgender Health Care Access, Rachel C. Kurzweil

Washington and Lee Journal of Civil Rights and Social Justice

No abstract provided.