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Full-Text Articles in Law
Fashioning A General Common Law For Employment In An Age Of Statutes, Michael C. Harper
Fashioning A General Common Law For Employment In An Age Of Statutes, Michael C. Harper
Faculty Scholarship
In the current post-Erie age of statutes the Supreme Court continues to have potential influence over the development of a “general” common law used to decide recurring issues governed by state law. This influence, which has drawn little commentary, derives from the Court’s authority to consider analogous issues when filling gaps in federal statutes, sometimes through express reliance on general common law. The influence is through the power to persuade, like that of the federal judiciary in its general common lawmaking age of Swift, rather than through the power to command, like that of the federal judiciary in the formulation …
A Reasonable Belief: In Support Of Lgbt Plaintiffs' Title Vii Retaliation Claims, Erin E. Buzuvis
A Reasonable Belief: In Support Of Lgbt Plaintiffs' Title Vii Retaliation Claims, Erin E. Buzuvis
Faculty Scholarship
When an LGBT employee is punished for complaining about discrimination in the workplace, he or she has two potential causes of action under Title VII: first, a challenge to the underlying discrimination, and second, a challenge to the resulting retaliation. The first claim is vulnerable to dismissal under courts’ narrow interpretation of Title VII’s prohibition of discrimination “because of sex” as applied to LGBT plaintiffs. But such an outcome need not determine the fate of the second claim. Faithful application of retaliation law’s “reasonable belief” standard, which protects a plaintiff from reprisal so long as she reasonably believed that she …
Clothes Don't Make The Man (Or Woman), But Gender Identity Might, Jennifer Levi
Clothes Don't Make The Man (Or Woman), But Gender Identity Might, Jennifer Levi
Faculty Scholarship
The Ninth Circuit's recent decision in Jespersen v. Harrah's Operating Co., Inc. reflects the blinders on many contemporary courts regarding the impact of sex-differentiated dress requirements on female employees. Although some courts have acknowledged the impermissibility of imposing sexually exploitive dress requirements, they have done so only at the extreme outer limits, ignoring the concrete harms experienced by women (and men) who are forced to conform to externally imposed gender norms. On the other hand, some transgender litigants have recently succeeded in challenging sex-differentiated dress requirements. This success is due in part to their incorporation of disability claims based on …